It's Her
by syrup78
Summary: A choice Amelia made a long time ago might affect her engagement with Owen, but she might just let it.
1. Chapter 1

_I wasn't scared at all. Okay, false. My tonsils were the size of Donald Trump's ego. Hyperbolic, but true. I knew going to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital would probably stir something up. True._

 _I wanted something to stir up. True?_

Alexa

Have you ever really wanted something, like so badly that you actually envision your life around it? Your future is literally impossible to see without this thing happening because you are so sure it's going to happen. Same. Only then that thing didn't happen and you have to come crashing back to reality.

Yeah. For me that thing was getting into Dartmouth College and majoring in chemistry on the pre-med track. For some odd reason, I thought I was good enough. I was in the top 7% of my class, had great test scores, did a few extra-curriculars. But I was nowhere near the Ivy League threshold. Still, I'd lived in New England my whole like, so the University of New Hampshire became my crashing reality. I didn't hate it.

Have you ever really wanted something so badly, but this time you know it's impossible, so you try to spend your life not imagining it? Same. Only then that thing actually does happen and you have to come crashing to a new reality.

Yeah, that one happened too. When I found out I was adopted, which meant my "mother" was not mine at all and it was fathomable that I hated her. It meant there was someone out there who cared enough about me that put me first to make sure I had a better life. They couldn't possibly know the woman who would adopt me was a total bitch who I would never connect with, leaving me longing for a mother figure who actually _felt_ like a mother. So when I found out, I secretly jumped for joy the way a high school senior might jump for joy when they found out they were admitted to Dartmouth College.

After I found out, pretty much nothing changed. I went to UNH in the fall. I still lived in Massachusetts with my "mother" who had left my "father" that year. My "sister" had different biological parents than me. We found out together. I got their names, I Googled them, and I got the idea that they probably weren't going to want anything to do with me anyway. So. Those things that you really think are going to happen, and the ones you think never will, should be considered long and hard before you go around imagining you near future so much that it hurts to be living a crashing reality.

Amelia

I twiddled the ring on my left ring finger. I contemplated taking it off, because it was distracting and worrisome but I knew that would upset Owen. I had kind of been hiding it all day. When people talked to me my hand instinctually went to my pocket. I briefly thought of my last engagement, and the one before that… and panicked.

"Amy?" I felt a hand on mine and Derek's familiar voice sent a chill down my spine. As he came into view I wrenched my hand back out of his grasp. He opened his mouth and shut it again. "Owen proposed?"

"Shut up, if you value your 'favorite brother' status _at all_ you will stop talking so loudly." I punched his arm.

"Ow! You act like it's a bad thing." I stuck out my jaw a little and gazed at my brother intensely until he caught up. "Oh, Amy…" he leaned in. "Just because… that doesn't mean…"

"Whatever, shut up, we're not talking about this here." I picked up a tablet and browsed an imaginary chart, waiting for Derek to stop being so big brotherly.

"Well, someone's going to find out eventually, and you'll have to face it then."

For some reason, the words out of Derek's mouth stung, although I was pretty sure the déjà vu I was having was from a time when my mother was talking. "Uhh… no." My voice rose at the end, as if I were asking a question. God, I hated the way Derek could always break down whatever wall I trying to put up. "I asked him to be quiet about it so I could tell people at my own pace," I quickly finished as Meredith approached us at the nurses' station.

"MVC five minutes out. Lots of head trauma. You in?" Meredith looked at me. I smiled slightly. Meredith wasn't one to give bullshit small talk or unwarranted advice, unlike my brother.

"You bet. Page Edwards," I said to the nurse behind the counter.

"I'm offended, you didn't choose your own husband for this surgery!" Derek said, smiling, and kissed Meredith. "Well, I guess this can be our engagement present to you, Amy."

"What?" Meredith looked between Derek and me.

"You are so _freaking_ lucky I don't have a scalpel in my hand right now, Derek."

"What, like you were gonna have girl talk with Liz, Nancy, Kathleen and Ma? It's just Meredith. I won't tell anyone. She won't tell anyone. Well. Barring Cristina. But she's on the other side of the world, basically," Derek said smiling as he tried to charm his way out of trouble.

"Derek-"

"Goodbye, favorite sister and favorite wife." Derek chuckled to himself before running off. I looked to Meredith.

"Owen proposed… kay. This is… good," Meredith said as she nodded as though she were trying to convince me, and probably herself.

"Can we please not talk about it?"

"Right. Let's go get prepped for the trauma."

Alexa

I had been sick for two weeks but still, nobody was calling it mono. Which was weird because mono is supposed to be a big college thing. But I was blood tested three times and it still wasn't coming back positive, although the nurse practitioner at health services told me it still could be mono.

I wasn't eating, I slept all day and my throat hurt like hell. It was a viral thing, they said after a few weeks. It takes time to heal. Everyone's different. The works.

When it came around to be my first semester of sophomore year, off to UWash I went. The National Student Exchange pretty much took care of everything, so it was actually pretty easy to convince my parents to let me go. My mother, really, had no choice because my father's rich mother was paying for all my schooling and she thought it was a wonderful idea. My health was more or less the same but it was clear my incompetent pediatrician wasn't going to be doing anything else about it.

The important part is, I would up in Seattle with more than enough reason for picking UWash as the campus to travel to.

Amelia

After a long surgery on one of the MVC victims, I was in the attending's lounge when Owen came in and smiled upon seeing me. My heart skipped a beat, or maybe stopped altogether. I couldn't tell the difference.

When he sat down next to me, I stiffened. Still, he didn't seem to think anything was wrong and kissed my forehead gently. "I heard you had a pretty big surgery. How'd it go? Did Derek try to take it from you?" He raised his eyebrows and I could tell he was genuinely interested. That was one thing about Owen; as much as he maybe wasn't great with verbalizing his thoughts, you could always tell at least how he felt.

I sighed. "Derek let me take it. He said it would be his engagement present… is that even a thing?"

"So you told Derek?" Owen smiled and ignored my question.

"Kind of. Yes. He and Meredith know. I just… I don't know if I'm ready to really tell anyone else yet…"

Owen's mouth fell into a straight line. "Should I be worried about that?"

I maybe paused for a second too long. I doubt it registered. "No," I chuckled in spite of myself. "I just… When I came to Seattle it was to start over. I came to build a new life, or at least one that wasn't necessarily tied to everything in LA. And now…" I nodded my head as if that would be sufficient explanation. "Now…"

"You envisioned yourself alone," Owen said as he took my hand. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right. It wasn't just that I hadn't expected to become engaged. Again. It was also that Owen wasn't even aware that this wasn't a first time thing for me. There was a lot he didn't know about me, and it wasn't trivial things like my favorite movie or ice cream flavor. It was a whole part of my life. In LA I lost a friend, lost a baby, lost a fiancé and ran from another one. I had mentioned the baby once. Not the best track record.

"Yes…" I wasn't making eye contact, but this time I knew he sensed it.

"Hey, hey, nothing has changed except for now we have a tentative plan to someday get married. All that's different is you have a ring on your finger now."

"About that…" I started, and he looked concerned as if I had lost it or decided it was ugly. "I think I'm going to leave it at home tomorrow. You know, until it's time to tell people."

Owen sighed but kept his face level. "Whatever you need." He smiled half-heartedly and I felt a little better. "You aren't the first wife I've had to warm into marriage."

I felt my face drop. "Right. Cristina…"

"Come on, Amelia, I was just joking."

I was looking at the ceiling, trying not to let the unexpected tears that had welled in my eyes fall down my face. Why was I about to cry? "Yeah, um, _okay_ , it's just that I am constantly trying to live up to standards left by others. I'm in Derek's shadow for sure, something he never lets me forget. And Meredith, God, she hardly lets a day go by without bringing up how Cristina and you were married before and how she thinks it's her civic duty or something to make sure I don't _ruin_ you, because Cristina still needs to watch over you apparently. So to get it from you, too, is just a little much right now." I stood and was about to exit, but he reached for my arm.

"Amelia, please, you know me, you know I wasn't trying to be hurtful, I just…"

"Do I really know you, Owen? Has it ever occurred to you how much we _don't_ know about each other?" I was letting the words fall out of my mouth with no regard for what might happen later. Though I was aware that this was happening, which briefly made me think of Violet and her incessant "Filter!" chant.

"Where is this coming from?"

"I don't know," I said in a hushed tone. "But it doesn't change the fact that it's true. And just so you know, you aren't my first fiancé either." I knew my words would hurt him but I said them nonetheless, wrenching my arm from someone's grasp for the second time today.

Alexa

I am reminded of the lesson on sleep apnea we had in AP psychology senior year when I think of how my roommate described what happened the night I was admitted. She said I would be fine and then my breathing started to get raspy and labored. A few times I woke myself up and repositioned so I could breathe better, but hardly any relief came. Sometime in the morning, I lost my airway and was basically choking so my roommate drove me to the hospital. I can't remember if we ended up at Grey Sloan by coincidence or some farfetched bull shit I came up with on the spot. I'm not a clever person. Probably the former.

I don't remember much at all about the rest of that night. When I woke up, the magnitude of the event hit me.

I was in Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Where my biological parents worked, at least according to Google. I supposed it was possible that they had relocated since then, but I hoped it wasn't true. Whether or not I was nervous, I knew I had to meet them before I left. I would just introduce myself and see if they took the bait. It was most likely that they would tell me to go screw, in which case I would. No harm done. At least I would know.

"Who's presenting?" came the voice of my ENT doctor, Dr. Avery. He was nice enough.

One of the members of his entourage stepped forward. "Alexa Lane. Nineteen years old. Admitted early this morning with a blocked airway due to tonsil obstruction. The ER doc performed a tracheotomy."

Dr. Avery rolled his eyes. Maybe a tracheotomy was not the way to go. Sure, it sucked that I couldn't currently speak but I was breathing so it was good enough for me. "Right," he said. "What's the course of treatment?"

"We'll remove Alexa's tonsils in surgery later and keep her for observation… maybe put her on prednisone to keep the rest of the throat from swelling too much."

Dr. Avery touched my shoulder. "Your surgery is scheduled for this afternoon. Do you have any questions?" He motioned to the white board one of the nurses brought me.

I wrote quickly and eagerly. _How long will I be here after?_

"Probably a few days, as long as there are not any complications. I don't foresee any. Normally it'd be an outpatient procedure but because of your probable mono and the tracheotomy I'd like to see it through for a little longer."

I nodded and wrote a new question. _How long until I can talk_?

Dr. Avery smiled at that one. "Soon after surgery. Granted, you will be in pain but without the trach you should be speaking just fine while in recovery." I smiled and nodded, and he reciprocated and led his team away.

So, I was going to be in the hospital, able to talk, for a few days while recovering. It seemed like things were going to work out for me. My mind was wandering and it was hard to keep track of what was in the realm of possibility and what I could only wish was true. I wasn't scared at all. Okay, false. My tonsils were the size of Donald Trump's ego. Hyperbolic, but true. I knew going to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital would probably stir something up. True.

I wanted something to stir up. True?

Amelia

Though I had unofficially been living in the trailer with Owen for a long time now, I couldn't bring myself to go to that home. Instead I slipped in the front door of Derek's place, the real house on the property. I suspected that he and Meredith wouldn't mind as I had been staying there before; my room was unchanged as far as I knew.

"Amelia?" Meredith said as she came out of the playroom with Bailey on her hip.

"Hi. I was… well I was going to stay in my room tonight. If that's okay, I mean."

"Is everything okay with Owen? I thought you'd be consummating your… engagement." Meredith chuckled genuinely and I felt a weird urge to open up to her. I started by taking a seat at the counter. While I really appreciated Meredith as a sister unlike the ones I already had, this was one area that was touchy between us because of her relationship with Cristina.

"I don't know. I said some stupid things. I also said some true things. It kind of seems like the only things I didn't say were the ones he needed know." I was being cryptic on purpose.

Bailey was tugging at Meredith's hair so she went to the fridge to get a bottle for him. "When I first met Derek, he didn't mention the wife he had on the east coast. I'm sure whatever you've got isn't that bad."

"If you only knew…"

Meredith raised her eyebrows, as if she was challenging me. "Let me go put Bailey down. I'll be back in a minute."

I sat and pondered how much I really wanted to tell Meredith right now. She would no doubt think I was a horrible person. Maybe that would be enough to show me that I hardly deserve Owen anyway. I thought long and hard about whether or not Addison would be welcoming if I showed up in LA. I even briefly thought of starting over, again, on the east coast. Derek could have his job as head of neuro back, and Owen would find someone who he actually knew and related to. Even Meredith would be better off without the awkward sister in law thing who was currently engaged to her best friend's ex-husband. Yeah.

"Amelia?" Meredith asked, seemingly not for the first time. I hadn't even notice her come back in the room because I was so caught up in an escape plan. "Do you want some coffee?"

"Sure."

Meredith busied herself with the coffee preparation for a minute, but then turned to me with a serious look on her face. "I get that I'm not the best sister in the world but I'd like to try. So go ahead. You can tell me. I have to warn you, Derek has told me some things that he found out from Addison, but I have no preconceived notions."

I somehow doubted that but let the big, deep dark secret that I hated even thinking about hang in the air between us. "I had a kid. In LA, yes. But I'm not talking about that." Meredith cocked her head. It was apparent she thought she already knew everything from Derek. Surprise, I'm worse than we all thought. "I had a child when I was sixteen. With… with Mark Sloan."

" _What?"_ was the reaction I was expecting, except it didn't come from Meredith. It came from Derek, who was apparently on his way to the kitchen as I began talking.

Alexa

When I woke up, I was in way more pain than I had expected. Before, swallowing and talking and yawning and breathing had hurt. That was nothing. It felt like there had been an explosion in my throat. The nurse in my room asked me if I wanted water and I was too afraid to speak so I just nodded. After I forced a sip down, I tested my voice. It was raspy.

"Is Dr. Avery going to be in again tonight?"

"He should be, but I can answer any questions you have," the nurse answered.

"None, I was just curious."

"He is a handsome little devil, isn't he?" the nurse smiled at me. I resisted rolling my eyes.

Later, when Dr. Avery came by, it was past dinner time and it seemed like he was wrapping up for the day so I took my chance. "You're a plastic surgeon too, aren't you?"

"I am."

"So you know other plastic surgeons, probably," I was trying not to dive right in but I wasn't sure how willing he was going to be to give me information.

"Why, are you looking for a tonsil reconstruction?" he joked.

"No I just… are you really close with the doctors here? Do you know a lot of them?"

"Well, I am a member of the board of this hospital so I don't really have a lot of time to know every doctor. But I do know a lot of surgeons. What is this about?"

"Do you know Amelia Shepherd, well, Dr. Shepherd?" I decided to ask about my mother first. My father was a plastic surgeon, too, so it was way more likely that Dr. Avery knew him. This gave me somewhat of a cushion to regain my nerve. Unless he and Dr. Shepherd were best friends, in which case this was getting worse by the second.

"Yes, well, kind of, I'm closer with her brother. Do _you_ know Dr. Shepherd?" Dr. Avery was clearly getting agitated. I debated my next words for a minute.

"I think… I think she's my mother."

Dr. Avery stared at me for a minute. Then he laughed, as if I were playing a joke on him. When I didn't laugh myself, his face turned serious again. "And you came to this hospital to tell her…"

"I came to this hospital to get my throat fixed. But I knew they worked here."

"They?"

"My parents."

Jackson put his hands up defensively. "I don't even want to know who the father is. That's Shepherd's business. Listen. I'll page her and you guys can talk if she's willing, but leave me and the hospital out of it. She's… she's faced a lot of scrutiny here and the last thing she needs is to be part of another scandal." He seemed to have no problem calling me a scandal.

I almost told him to forget the page, because it was clear that I might be doing more harm than good, but couldn't seem to find the words.

Amelia

"You and _Mark_ had a baby? Amelia? When you were sixteen! Mark was way too old for you! Is that even legal? God, Amy, you think you might have mentioned this over the past couple of decades since then," Derek was yelling with a ferocity I hadn't ever seen before. With reason. He wasn't supposed to find out like this. He wasn't supposed to find out at all. "You think Mom might have said something. Did Ma even know?"

"Derek, you're going to wake up the kids-" Meredith started but I cut her off.

"Of course Mom knew." I could tell he was waiting for me to elaborate but I wasn't going to give him anything else.

"Yeah? And what about Liz and Kathleen and Nancy? Did they know? Did Mark even know?"

"Mark knew. He gave me money to go get it aborted," I spat. Meredith looked like she didn't know where she should be. "Addison was the one I told. Because she wasn't going to spread it around like the family gossips our sisters are. Addie made me tell Mom, and Mom told me it was my decision if I wanted to tell anyone else. I think she suspected I would, but I knew I wasn't going to. I mean, look at the way you're reacting now. Imagine your reaction when it was actually happening. So we set up a private adoption. And that was the end of it."

"Amy, are you _serious_ right now? God, I can't even look at you."

"Derek-" Meredith tried again to calm him down but he was getting out of control. He was always a yeller. Me? I learned the best way to deal with him was to be the calm one, because at least then I could look back and say I was probably more rational than he was.

"No, Meredith, don't even say anything right now, because the only sister _you've_ ever had to deal with, you pushed away until she was dead!"

Meredith caught a wild look in her eye. "You know that's not true and right now you're just saying things to be hurtful. But you don't get to just do that! To be quite frank, you're severely overreacting."

"Oh, yes, _I'm overreacting_. God, Meredith, why are you taking her side when half the time you act like you hate her?"

Meredith looked at me. "I don't hate her. I think she knows that." I was grateful for what Meredith was doing but I felt tears welling up anyway.

Derek and Meredith continued to yell for a minute until there was a knock on the door. Derek answered it, and a familiar voice almost sent me into hysterics.

"I heard yelling… is everything alright Shep?" Owen stepped inside and saw me practically crying. "Amelia." He walked over to me and put his arm around me but I shrugged it off. "What's going on?"

"Why don't you ask your _fiancée_ there," Derek's eyes were narrowed. I glared at him.

"Derek." Meredith warned.

"Have fun building a life with a liar, Owen, you might want to save yourself the trouble."

" _Derek!_ "

"Amelia, what is he talking about," Owen was getting mad. I was panicking. As much as Meredith wanted to help, she wasn't. It was just me.

My pager went off.

"I… the hospitals paging me. This isn't a good time. Owen…" I reached for the pager but he grabbed it from my bag first.

"Avery is paging you? What, is he that other fiancé you mentioned earlier? Are you cheating on me, Amelia?" Owen looked more hurt than angry at this point.

"Probably," Derek said. Meredith's jaw dropped.

"Enough!" Meredith yelled. " _You_ ," she pointed to Derek "are being an absolute jackass right now, and need to go settle you children again because you woke them up with your temper tantrum. And you, Owen… you just need to trust that Amelia is not cheating on you with Avery, who, by the way, is happily married to April Kepner, _a close colleague and friend of yours_. Amelia, I'm going to drive you to the hospital. Owen, you need to go back to the trailer, and Derek, for the love of God, get the kids to bed and go to bed yourself because you're out of control and it's enough." With that, Meredith grabbed her purse and mine, ripped my pager out of Owen's hand and with her empty hand, grabbed my arm and led me out to the driveway. I tried not to cry on the way.

Alexa

Dr. Avery was standing outside of my room, waiting for Dr. Shepherd. I somehow knew it was her when she first arrived. She talked to Dr. Avery for a minute before she entered my room. Immediately I could tell she was distraught. Her eyes were red and puffy and walked was another woman with her who was still talking to Dr. Avery outside. I wondered who she was.

Dr. Shepherd pulled a chair up to my bed. "So, you're…"

"Your daughter," I said. As hard as this was for me, it seemed like it was probably a lot harder for her.

She bowed her head in defeat. "God, I…"

"It's okay," I said, suddenly regretting my decision to open my mouth. I was clearly causing pain for no reason. "I don't want anything. I just wanted to meet. After all this time, I just wanted to see who… I mean, where I came from. I'm nothing like my adoptive parents."

She looked up at me. "Do you like them?" She was biting her bottom lip. It was a habit I also had.

"I mean, yes, they're my parents, well, you know… I'm having a hard time with my mother. We just don't connect. I know it's selfish, but I've always wondered what it would be like to connect with my real mother."

"It's not selfish. Selfish is giving a perfectly healthy baby up so that you don't ruin what plans you had for your future. I know that now. I… I was pregnant a few years ago and the baby was born without a brain," she choked back a sob and sniffled. "And you… I gave you up. So it has always seemed like kids won't be in the cards for me. Which sucks, because my fiancé has always wanted kids and divorced his last wife over that fundamental issue… I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm saying all of this. I've had a rough night. Actually, my brother just found out… about you."

"Well, I'm sorry if I've messed anything else up…"

"No, please don't say that. Getting to meet you… I'm happy you're here. I'm just sorry I'm not a better mother. I'm not someone you want as a mother."

Despite what she said I still felt a strong connection to her. "Well, maybe we could just be… friendly?"

She smiled. "I would like that a lot. I have a lot going on right now with my fiancé and…" she trailed off and it was clear it wasn't a sentence she was going to finish.

"So your fiancé… he's not…"

"Your father? No. Alexa," I shivered when she said my name for the first time. She grabbed my hand. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but your father died of complications that arose after he was injured in a plane crash."

I tried not to let my jaw fall open. "A plane crash?"

"Yes. My brother and his wife… Derek and Meredith, I guess you'll have to meet them at some point. Meredith is the one outside with Dr. Avery. Anyways, they were on the plane too, along with my fiancé's ex-wife, who is Mer's best friend, and Mer's half-sister Lexie, who died on site… and my friend Arizona who I met at Johns Hopkins."

"Wow," I said. "You all work here?"

"Yes," Dr. Shepherd sort of chuckled. "We're all connected somehow it seems."

"You went to Johns Hopkins?" I asked, amazed and another feeling which I could only identify as proud.

"Yes. Aren't you in school now?"

I shrugged. "I go to UNH. I really wanted to go to Dartmouth but I wasn't accepted. I'm doing a semester at UWash, though. Which is why I'm in Seattle."

Dr. Shepherd smiled. "I wish I went to state school for undergrad. It's way less expensive that way, and with good grades you can still get into top level graduate schools if that's what you want to do. What's your major?"

"Chemistry," I suddenly felt shy. "Honestly, I was planning on going to medical school."

Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears. She wiped them away. "I'm sorry, just, wow… I never thought I'd get to hear my daughter say she wanted to go to medical school. I never thought I'd get to hear my daughter say anything." She squeezed my hand. "Well, it just so happens that I'm a neurosurgeon and might have a tip or two when it comes to medical school."

"Dr. Shepherd…"

"Please, call me Amelia…"

"Amelia, it seems like Meredith and someone else are yelling… and pointing at you from outside."

Amelia turned around and sighed. "That's Owen, my fiancé. I'd like to introduce you to him when things cool down… We were fighting before I came here. I should talk to him… I'll be right back." She let go of my hand and gave me an assuring smile even though I could tell she was tensing up. She slid open the door and walked into the hallway.

I was watching their colorful conversation unfold for a minute before I blacked out.

Amelia

"What are you doing here?" I asked. My hands were trembling.

"I came to talk to you because I _thought_ our impending marriage was more important that a surgery you got paged to. You're not even on call!" he yelled, though I knew Meredith had probably briefed him that it wasn't a surgery after all.

"It's not a surgery, Owen. It's her."

Owen looked into Alexa's room. "What are you talking about?"

"She's my… that's my daughter."

Owen gave me a side glance with his jaw open. "Your what?"

"When I was sixteen, I had a child. Mark Sloan was the father. I put her up for adoption because Mark wanted no part in it and I was too busy thinking about myself. That's what Derek was yelling about earlier. I'm actually surprised he didn't tell you when we left. That's the reason I was so nervous about the engagement. You had no idea. And there's some other stuff you have no idea about, still, stuff that's a big part of me. So I thought it wouldn't work."

Owen tried to hold my trembling hand but I pulled back. "Amelia, things can never work if you won't let me in."

"Wait, you guys are engaged?" Jackson said.

"Avery, shut up?" Meredith retorted, and Jackson walked into Alexa's room.

"Owen, my own brother didn't even know about this. It's not something I wanted to share, even with you…"

"Well that's just perfect, Amelia," he said running a hand through his hair. I could tell Meredith was ready to pounce though I thought it was weird that she still wanted to hang around.

"I don't mean it's you, I just mean…"

I didn't have time to finish my sentence because Jackson was suddenly rushing Alexa down the hall. "Grey, can you come with me to the OR?"

Meredith caught my eye and ran after them. "Stay here, I will update you," she called to me. "Avery, what happened?"

"I don't know," was the answer I heard.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey guys! I really didn't expect anyone to read this but it got a few follows so I figured I'd keep up with it. I appreciate the reviews but please keep them coming (including criticism)! Let me know if you like Alexa's perspective, because if not I can keep away from it. If you guys have any suggestions, also, feel free to let me know! I was pondering a Jo and Amelia friendship coming into play somewhere down the line… let me know how you guys feel. Thanks for reading!**

Amelia

Even though the air between us wasn't exactly clear, Owen could tell I was in no state to work it out right there and then. He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and this time I didn't fight him. He led me to the chairs by the reception area. At first I didn't think anything of it, but I suddenly became antsy and very self-conscious. What if the other doctors saw me in a state like this?

"Owen, I need to do something. I can't just sit here. I should go to the OR. It looked like seizures to you, didn't it?"

"Amelia, you can't operate on family. You know that."

"Oh, please. How many times has that rule been broken, Chief? Besides, legally she's not my family," I was pacing. He stopped me by grabbing my hand. For a second I held contact with his eyes, icy and maybe a little bit fearful. Then I looked away.

"Well, it didn't look like seizures to me. It was probably bleeding. I doubt they need a neurosurgeon in there," he sighed. "Amelia, maybe we should go wait at home."

"No. I can't. What if something happens? And I'm not here. I just got to meet her, Owen, I'm not going to leave right now."

"Okay, okay. Well, what if I go see what's happening and get you an update? Will you wait here for me?" Owen was getting desperate. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I knew it was unfair of me to threaten going into that OR. The predominating, irrational part of me was telling me otherwise. "Amelia, I'm getting worried about you. You're shaking. And pacing."

"Well, do you want me to deal with this stress in a more constructive way? Perhaps go hit up the nurses for some drugs? Grab a beer at Joe's?" I snapped.

He grabbed both of my hands this time. "Please, just sit down."

I turned my heads and saw Edwards walking towards the ORs. "Stephanie?"

She seemed surprised that I called her by her first name, but stopped anyway. "Oh, Dr. Shepherd I didn't know you were here. Grey paged me to the OR. I'm the only resident still here right now. One of Dr. Avery's patients had a massive hemorrhage. I gotta go."

"Amelia-"

"I'm going too. I have to make sure all the nerves are preserved in her mouth. That's a sensitive area. She could lose the ability to speak." I was rambling. I knew it made no sense at all, but hell if Owen was going to fight me at this point. He shook his head but didn't say anything as I took off to find my daughter.

As soon as I opened the door I was berated with the exact words I didn't want to hear.

"Amelia, what are you doing?" Meredith said.

"Shepherd, you aren't supposed to be here," came Avery's voice.

"I know, I know. I just want to know what's happening," I said from behind the mask I was holding up to my face. "I'll go sit in the gallery after."

"Wait, why can't Dr. Shepherd be here?" Edwards asked. I inhaled sharply.

"Uh… she's… banned from the OR because she lost a bet with Avery. It was a surgical junkie kind of dare," Meredith tried to cover.

"Umm… okay," Edwards said, clearly not buying the bullshit.

"She had a hemorrhage after the tonsillectomy. It was bad but we've got it under control for the most part. Now, Edwards, why don't you go sit with Dr. Shepherd in the gallery?"

"But I thought you needed me here…"

"The fun part's over, Edwards, so go upstairs please," Meredith didn't look up from her work until Stephanie ignored her. "Go!"

Edwards looked at me and reluctantly followed me out of the OR.

Alexa

 _I could kind of tell I was dreaming, but it wasn't like any other dream I had ever had. Things were insanely detailed in the way that you just can't remember when you wake up from a dream. Like, you always seem to end up forgetting all the specifics unless something really random that day reminds you of it. But this dream was different. It just seemed… real._

 _I was woken up by my alarm clock at 6:45 am. I had organic chem lecture at 8:10 and needed to shower. It was raining out. I debated getting out of bed._

 _I decided to wear a green jacket that I didn't really like, but for some reason it seemed like the right choice for today. When I got to lecture, everyone stared at me as I sat down, which was weird because I usually slipped through unnoticed in any extraordinary sense._

 _When the professor walked in, it wasn't the professor. It was Amelia. She was wearing the same green jacket as I was and I recognized it as the jacket she was wearing when I met her._

 _I waved and pointed to my jacket, hoping she would be as excited by the coincidence as I was. Instead she just scowled at me. I felt hurt._

 _After the lecture, which lasted about 2 minutes in the dream, I went up to her and tried to figure out what was going on._

 _"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not your mother. Your mother is in Massachusetts. I don't want you, I don't want to know you. Why do you think I gave you up?" and she laughed in my face. That's when I decided to classify it as a nightmare._

Amelia

I didn't say anything to Stephanie, just paced back and forth watching the end of Alexa's surgery. Avery kept noticing me walking along the gallery window. I think it annoyed him but I didn't know what else to do.

"Dr. Shepherd, why did Dr. Grey make me come up here with you?"

I was kind of startled by Edwards' voice. "She's worried about me," I said as if that would explain everything.

"Okay, but why? 'Cause I have never seen a hemorrhage that bad and I was reeeeally looking forward to assisting." I stopped pacing and stared at Edwards. God, did these residents ever learn sensitivity? "Who is she?"

I saw down next to Edwards. "My daughter."

"Your… oh? Oh." Edwards said. "She's nineteen?"

"I was 16 when I had her. Mark Sloan was the father."

"Mark Sloan as in… died in a plane crash Mark Sloan?"

"That's the one." I noticed my hands were trembling again.

"You knew him when you were sixteen?" she asked and I rolled my eyes. "Sorry, I was just trying to bring your mind elsewhere."

"It's okay. He was Derek's best friend as a kid. He came to Seattle a little while after Derek came out," I said, though my voice cracked a little as tears threatened once more. "We were close as kids, but as he and Derek grew up I just became the annoying little sister. But he was a good lay," I chuckled and wiped my eyes. "I visited here before the plane crash, and we hooked up even though he was clearly emotionally invested in Lexie. I felt bad for her after. God, that's the last thing I did with him."

Stephanie gave one of my hands a squeeze. "Is that really such a bad thing?" she said, and we both laughed.

I stood and watched as they wheeled Alexa into recovery, and Meredith looked up into the gallery and gave me a thumbs up. I let out a sigh of relief.

When I returned to Alexa's room after talking to Avery and Mer for a few minutes about the surgery, Owen was waiting by the door.

"You stayed?" I asked as I peered into the room. Alexa wasn't awake yet but would probably wake up for a few minutes within the next hour or so.

"Of course I stayed, Amelia," he said. "How is she, um…"

"Alexa. Her name is Alexa. And Avery says everything went well. She'll probably be discharged in another few days." As I finished my sentence I almost choked up. Owen embraced me and I stayed in his arms for a minute. "I'm sorry," I whispered. I didn't give him a chance to ask what for, let him take it or leave it. Instead I entered Alexa's room, not quite surprised when he followed. "You don't have to stay. I'll probably stay for the rest of the night. It'll just be easier than going back home and running back here again."

"Come on, you don't have to work tomorrow," Owen said as he sat in the chair next to the bed and motioned for me to take the one next to him.

"Half a day, at least. I have an aneurysm to clip and Edwards is ready to do it herself I think," I explained.

"Okay. So you don't mind… if I stay and meet her then?" he said cautiously.

"No, I told her a little about you. She saw you outside when you were talking to Mer." I sighed. And then despite everything, I started to laugh. "God this is so weird." Owen smiled too and it was something I realized I missed seeing over the last day. I began twiddling the ring that I never had a chance to take off.

"It's… unconventional. But at least you're getting to know each other. I mean, you are planning on developing a relationship with her?"

I rubbed my temples. "I think so. I don't know. Her adoptive family loves her, you know? I don't know if I'd be making things worse."

"She's your daughter, I don't think anything bad can come of that. Children are… a miracle. And I'm so happy that you're getting to experience it." He seemed solemn.

"Owen, it's not like she still needs child rearing." I said, knowing that we were approaching dangerous territory.

"No, but don't you remember being nineteen? Trying to figure things out on your own, finding that balance of needing your parents but wanting to do it all yourself. It's not like another role model wouldn't be… useful."

"When I was nineteen I certainly could have used some parenting." The words fell out of my mouth, a common theme of the day.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Nothing." He sighed. "We can talk about everything soon, I promise, but not now. It's been a long day." I said, and leaned my head on his shoulder.

"It certainly has."

Alexa

When I woke up, there was sunlight pouring into my room. Amelia was sitting in a chair next to my bed, snoring a little. I reached for the cup of water on my table, but knocked it over, which startled her awake.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Well, my throat hurts… I don't remember much. What happened?" I was hoping she was able to account for my time because I wasn't.

She bit her lip again. "You had a lot of bleeding after the original surgery, so they rushed you back in. Actually, Meredith operated with Dr. Avery. You're going to be fine, though," Amelia said, wiping her eyes.

"You look tired," I blurted. I was in fact the brutally honest type, but I wasn't sure how she would feel about that. It did feel a little like I was walking on eggshells, trying to make myself a desirable daughter even though I was pretty sure my time with Amelia was going to come to a close real soon. Sure, she had mentioned introducing me to a couple people. But she was probably just overwhelmed by meeting me for this first time, and it was late. Everything looks different in the morning.

"You have no idea. This chair wasn't the most comfortable option," she smiled, and I was glad she wasn't offended.

"You didn't have to stay," I said.

"It's okay. I wanted to." She checked her watch. "But I have to get going now. I have a surgery in an hour. Maybe I can…come by after and tell you about it? Give you a taste of the surgeon's lifestyle?"

"I'd like that," I smiled, and I meant it.

Later that day I was being poked and prodded endlessly by nurses until I thought I was going to scream. Finally, Dr. Avery came by on rounds with a resident I hadn't met before.

"Wilson," Dr. Avery nodded.

"Alexa Lane, nineteen years old, day one post-op from…" she paused as she flipped the page on my chart. "From a post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage."

"I don't know if Amel- uh, if Dr. Shepherd told you but you'll be here for a few more days. I just want to make sure there are no other complications." Dr. Avery nodded. "Dr. Wilson is just going to finish a little charting and do a post-op check."

"Wait, why is Dr. Shepherd on this case?"

"She's not, she just… Just do the chart Wilson," Dr. Avery said as he left.

"Okay! Daaamn, someone's a little uptight," Dr. Wilson chuckled and rolled her eyes. I appreciated that she wasn't talking down to me about anything medical and was just being friendly, which is more than I could say for most of the nurses.

"Wilson?" Amelia's voice surprised both of us.

"Dr. Shepherd, hi, I was just doing a post-op exam."

"How is she?" Amelia wasn't wearing scrubs and she had a purse with her.

"Uh, good, good," Dr. Wilson said as she snapped her gloves off. "You're all set." She rubbed my upper arm and smiled before turning to Amelia. "I didn't realize she was neuro, too, I would have had Steph down here…"

I could tell our situation was hard for her to explain and I felt a little bad. Either she was going to have to come up with a lie for everyone who asked, ignore them, or tell the truth and I was willing to bet none of the three were at all appealing.

"She's not, um, Wilson have you seen the Chief?"

"Not today at all." Wilson took my chart with her when she left.

"You haven't seen Owen?" Amelia asked me. I shook my head. "Of course you haven't, that was stupid of me to ask…" she was biting her lip and her eyes kept darting to the hallway.

"Is everything alright?" I dared.

"Yeah," she answered quickly. "Yeah I just… I'll be back in a bit. I have to do something really quick."

Amelia

Owen was not hard to find. The only places he ever spends downtime at the hospital are on call rooms and the vents. He took me to the vents one day back when we first started dating but I hadn't been down there since.

"Owen?" I approached slowly, trying not to startle him because it seemed like he was deep in thought.

He turned around and faced me. "What are you doing here?"

"I woke up and you were gone. You said something about meeting her and then you just left while I was asleep." I didn't know I was bothered by him leaving until I said it. When I came to find him I just wanted to tell him I was going to stay at Derek's and that we could talk tonight.

"You fell asleep almost immediately. She started to wake up a few minutes later and I just… didn't want to meet her without you. I didn't want to put myself too close to the situation."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said. It's just too hard."

I felt my gut drop. "What's too hard, Owen?" I felt the telltale lump in my throat. "Marrying a teen mom? Marrying a screw up like me? Marrying a runner?"

"Don't go spinning this on me now. You're the one who wasn't sure anymore. But let me tell you something Amelia, I've always been sure. Until now." He threw an arm out as if to gesture 'until _this_ shit'.

"So what's the deal breaker here?" I asked, feeling myself resort into defense mode.

"Don't you see!" Owen grabbed my shoulders. "It's too hard."

"You said that and I still don't know what you mean."

"Christ, Amelia, it's too hard watching you practically throw this relationship with your daughter away and know you probably won't ever want another kid."

My jaw must have been on the floor. I felt the adrenaline and rage. "I am not throwing the relationship away, Owen! She's nineteen years old, she doesn't need parents anymore. And besides, she has parents already. She doesn't need me," I yelled at first, but was blinking away tears as I finished. "What kid would want a drug addict, alcoholic, technically homeless shadow surgeon as their mother?"

Owen's face softened. "Amelia. She'd be lucky to have you. And it wouldn't be a bad thing if you… we were there for her. Maybe she grabs lunch with you, maybe she moves to Seattle. I don't know. But please, Amelia, I'm begging you to find a way to love her. And I would love her too. She's your daughter."

"I don't know if that's true after nineteen years."

Alexa

When Amelia came back twenty minutes later, it was apparent she had been crying. She had mentioned trouble with her fiancé but I suddenly felt protective of this woman who I hardly knew. I grew up thinking blood didn't make someone family, mostly just because of my sister, but I'd like to make an amendment to that. Blood is not necessary criteria for family. But blood can make family. I felt it then, despite not knowing Amelia all that well. I wanted to stop her pain, though I also felt like I was probably causing some of it.

I had my bed propped up pretty far so I was sitting up picking at the disgusting lunch that the nurses insisted I eat. Mostly it was just a pile of food pushed around on the plate. It was a late lunch because I slept late, something the nurses had no problem rolling their eyes about.

"Not a fan of meat loaf?" Amelia smiled as she sat down in the chair by my bed. "Me neither."

I chuckled, despite the pain in my throat. "No. Not that the food at school is really any better."

"Oh I remember. And it's not like you can buy any of your own food because you're broke and trying to pay thousands of dollars for school already and they don't have scholarships for groceries," she said and we were both laughing. It really wasn't that funny but I think we both were just looking for some relief after a weird, emotional couple of days. "So, if it's okay with you… I wanted to formally introduce you to Owen and Meredith. I asked Derek to stop by too but… I don't know if that's going to happen. It's hard for him to understand. Mark, your father, was his best friend and a lot older than me at the time. He's been over protective of me since…" She was wiping her eyes. "Sorry. I'm not usually like this."

"I understand," I said, though in truth I can't imagine my sister ever not meeting my child because of who I'd had it with. "I really don't want to cause any trouble, so if it's better off that I just don't interfere-"

Amelia grabbed my hand, which surprised me. "No, no please don't ever think like that. I am happy to be there in whatever way I can. I know you're not asking for anything but I am ready to give. I haven't exactly done everything the right way in my life but with you I can tell I did something right. And I'm probably still going to screw up, that's the only promise I can make right here and now. But I would like to try anyways, because I think even if I do make mistakes, and even if I am maybe the least qualified person to be doing… this, I think something good can come of this anyway." She bit her lip. "I'm not a sure person when it comes to these things. I'm not even sure of my own engagement right now. But I am as sure as I can be about this."

By now I was crying. She just looked at me patiently, which made me feel like it'd be safe to say anything but it'd be okay if I didn't have anything to say either. After a minute I spoke. "When I found out, I… I mean I imagined something coming of it, but I didn't want to. I didn't think it would ever happen, and it hurt to even think about. I appreciate my parents a lot but like I said, I just never connected with my mother. And I know deep down how ungrateful that is but meeting you has really changed a lot for me. So I'd like to try too. Maybe we don't know what that explicitly means but trying is… good."

Amelia squeezed my hand and for the first time in a while the idea of family always being there didn't make me feel like I was in a cheesy sitcom. Just then her fiancé appeared in the doorway. "Amelia?"

"Owen, uh…" she pulled him from the doorway into the room. "So. This is Alexa. Alexa, this is Owen, my fiancé. He's our chief of surgery. And he's a trauma surgeon."

Owen smiled. "How are you feeling?"

"Still some pain, but… better." I smiled.

"That's good to hear. Well, if there's anything you need I'm the man to talk to. I'm in between things right now so I gotta…" He pointed his thumb at the door. I nodded. He kissed Amelia on the forehead and said something to her which I didn't hear, but made her shoulders tense up. When he left I looked for answers in her face.

"We just have… a lot to work out."

 **A/N: Aaand, the Amelia and Owen conversation is coming soon… stay tuned. I personally feel like the first chapter was better but you guys let me know! This is all new to me so don't give up on me yet! I'm going to try to update weekly but Fridays are bad, I might upload a short chapter this Sunday and switch to Sundays.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading! In this chapter I am sticking only to Amelia's perspective to try and see how it feels without Alexa's. I don't know if I'll completely throw it out yet, so as always all criticism welcomed! I appreciate all your support and suggestions so much.**

 **This chapter is very Mer/Amelia centric and not much Alexa**

 **P.S. Sorry it's a day late! Physics really sucks right now :/**

Amelia

After Owen left, I sat down in the chair next to Alexa's bed and tried my best not to think about the grueling conversation I was going to have to have later. I wanted to work things out with Owen but somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware there was a good chance he wasn't going to want to be with me anymore. There was so much I had left out… some might consider it a lie. Derek certainly would although Mr. Perfect needs to learn the act of forgiveness as he hasn't always been upfront about everything himself.

"Anyways," I said as I adjusted to the chair that I was asleep in just this morning. My first thought was that I really needed to get a parent cot in here. Then I wanted to punch myself. What nineteen year old would want their biological mother who they knew for a day to sleep in their hospital room on the floor? "So the surgery I had earlier… it was an aneurysm. Do you, um, know what that is?" It was difficult, trying to gauge what was condescending and what was just appropriate. It had also been a while since I spoke teenage girl.

"I mean, that's like a balloon in a vessel right? That could burst?"

I smiled proudly. "Yes. So we have to put a clip on it to stop the blood flow into the ballooned part and that way it won't burst and cause bleeding. And then we pop the balloon to make sure that all the blood flow is cut off…" Alexa looked at me eagerly. "And… yeah. Sorry. It's hard, trying to describe this to someone else. It's different with residents because you just kind of talk and wait for them to catch on."

"So, well, tell me about like the residents. How did you pick a resident to do the surgery with you?"

"Right now, Edwards is my resident. As an intern you rotate specialties a lot but as you get deeper into your residency you tend to find your niche and stick with it. Edwards has been with me for a little while now. She's great," I finished. I really didn't know what else to tell Alexa about, and I felt like I was disappointing her. There's a reason you can't learn surgery all in school without doing it, and observing does volumes more for someone than hearing an explanation from a surgeon who clips aneurysms on a near daily basis.

"That's really cool. Did you ever consider another specialty?" she asked.

"Well, Derek is also a neurosurgeon. I didn't know if I wanted to follow in his footsteps or not. To be honest he can be pretty overbearing and… I considered pediatric surgery for a while during residency, being from Johns Hopkins and all, but in the end neuro was just for me."

"It seems impossible to pick. When I was ten and I broke my wrist for the first time, I told everyone who would listen that I was going to be an orthopedic. But brain mapping also sounds so cool… but so does fixing beating hearts," her eyes lit up, and I was insanely proud to be hearing about her ambitions but was also struck by what I had missed.

"You've broken your wrist? Multiple times?" I asked.

"Yeah… I buckled fractured it when I was ten, radial fracture when I was twelve, sprain when I was sixteen. Last year I tore a ligament, or a tendon. I always get those mixed up." She sighed. "It still flares up and hurts sometimes but now I have a party trick," she said as she closed her fingers on her palm and bent her wrist forward, revealing a large bubble on the back of her hand where bone was protruding. She laughed.

I grabbed her hand and examined it closer. "Jeez, you've really done a number on it. Maybe I can get Callie to look at it."

"It's fine, really. Who's Callie?" she asked. I was noticing that she seemed a lot more stable with the situation today than I was. Maybe it was time to be an adult.

"Callie is Arizona's wife. She's an orthosurgeon," I explained. "But uh, I'm gonna head home. I'll be back tomorrow for a surgery in the morning… Maybe I can come by with some takeout for lunch? If you want."

"Please do. I could do without another tray of hospital crap," Alexa smiled. "Can I ask you something, though?"

"Of course," I answered, nervous.

"What do you think… I mean, so far we've talked a lot because I'm here in the hospital, but do you think things will stay the same when I'm gone?"

I bit my lip. Truthfully I didn't know what was going to happen beyond the next day or so. "I don't know. We can feel it out. And just… make it work. If that's still what you want."

She smiled again, this time weakly. "It is. I just feel like maybe it's not what you want. It seems like things for you would be easier if I wasn't here."

We were both navigating brand new terrain. I didn't know what to say. She wasn't wrong, things might be easier if she hadn't shown up, but I was glad that she did.

* * *

When I got back to the house, I was counting on it being empty so I could take a good nap and get some things done. Instead I heard Bailey crying and Zola laughing as I approached the kitchen door, and sighed when I realized Derek was home.

"Aunty Amy, you're here!" Zola ran over to me as I opened the door.

"I am here! But why are you here Zo-Zo? Did you take Bailey and escape from daycare?"

"Daddy's home today! So we get to play with him all day!" Just as Zola finished her sentence, Derek came out to the living room with Bailey's plush turtle.

"Oh, you've been home… all day?" I asked carefully. I didn't want Derek to start yelling in front of the kids but he knew how much it meant to me for him to meet Alexa. Mer at least texted me back saying today wasn't a good day but probably tomorrow. Derek ignored me all together.

"Oh, Amy, please, don't start this with me. You lied about everything with Mark. You didn't think when my wife cheated on me with him, you might also bring up that you got p-r-e-g-n-a-n-t with his baby when you were sixteen?"

"Mommy cheats at games, Daddy?" Zola asked. Normally her innocence and adorableness was enough to make me smile but Derek's words had a way of forming a cloud over me that followed me all day.

"No, Zola, Mommy doesn't cheat. Except at Old Maid. She's always peeking," Derek picked up Bailey who was yawning as the afternoon approached. "We'll talk later."

"Derek, please." I felt myself getting worked up, but I wanted to talk to Derek while he seemed calm enough.

He sighed. "Let me put the kids down for a nap. I was going to finish some paperwork, but I guess that isn't going to happen."

"Yes. What a terrible thing, sacrificing twenty minutes for your sister." I couldn't help myself.

"Amy," he eyed the kids and nodded his head as though he was disappointed in me. That was Derek alright, always finding a way to make me feel like shit.

I sat at the counter, waiting, just like I had with Meredith. This conversation was going to have a completely different tone, though.

"You spent the whole day here today, Derek." I said when he came back into the kitchen.

"I did."

"So why couldn't you have just stopped by like I asked?" I was surprised to find that I hadn't wanted to cry yet. I think I was just more mad at Derek's reaction than anything.

"And do what with the kids? Drop them off at daycare for five minutes?" he asked sarcastically.

I rested my forehead on my palm. "Why are you so difficult? Honestly. It's obviously not about the kids."

"Why am I so difficult? Amy, you lied to everyone, including your fiancé, about a child you had. And then she showed up."

"My relationship with Owen isn't any of your business. God, Derek, would it kill you to have my back for once in your life?"

"I'm not going to have the back of someone who doesn't have mine," he spat.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you slept with my best friend."

"Oh my God, Derek I was sixteen! I'm sorry that you're hurt about it now!" I tried not to get loud enough to wake the kids.

"Yeah, well we all know what kinds of choices you were making as a teenager. I guess I shouldn't be surpised."

I felt a single tear roll down my cheek. "Doesn't the fact that she's Mark's daughter make any difference? Despite the fact that you hate me right now… She's your best friend's child. Your niece."

He voice was so low it was almost scary. "Of course it makes a difference. That's the half of it, of course. She's a living breathing piece of Mark. I don't know how to come to terms with knowing his child that he never knew."

"Won't you just start by meeting her?"

* * *

I was still asleep at 7pm, surprisingly, when Meredith came home. She knocked on my bedroom door and when I didn't answer, thinking it might be Derek, she opened the door and placed a cup of lemon iced tea on my night stand. "Hey."

"Hi, thanks," I said, taking a sip. "How was work?"

She sat down on the bed, which surprised me. It seemed like lately she was being really protective of me but I didn't know what prompted her behavior. "Good, good. There was a lot of trauma today again. It was just one of those days." She wasn't looking me in the eye which confirmed to me that something weird was definitely happening.

"Mer?" I asked.

She looked at me with watery eyes. Her hand went to her neck and collarbone. "He's so angry. All the time. I don't know how to deal with it. Ever since he turned down the job in DC, it's been fight after fight after fight. And he's been terrible to you, but I feel like I'm making a rift if I stand up for you."

"You don't have to stand up for me, Meredith. I've been fighting with him for what feels like a hundred years now. And I don't mean just sibling rivalry. We're a level beyond that. He's always condescending to me and views me as a screw up. And he isn't wrong. I put up with it because he's my brother, and he means well most of the time."

"I know you don't need me too, but I guess the wifely part of me wants him to treat his family right. And you are, you're our family. I was never the family type… I've kind of grown into it. But now he's just destroying everything for the sake of being destructive. I don't know…" Meredith paused. "I don't know if my marriage can survive this."

I let the magnitude of her words hang around us for a minute. "Meredith, I don't think…"

"I know. He'd kill me if he knew I was saying anything to you. I just figured, you've known him your whole life. You understand what I mean. If I said any other this to anybody else they'd take my side automatically because they're my friends and I don't need somebody to take my side. I need somebody who understands that I don't want there to be sides anymore."

I sighed. I really wasn't expecting this type of confession from Mer but she did have a point. Maybe she just felt like since I opened up to her, she would do the same… I really didn't know. I wasn't used to having a sister that I actually talked to, so I wasn't sure how normal all of this was. "What are we going to do?" I almost chuckled.

"Well, normally I would just drown myself in tequila shots, but I don't think that's going to work out," Meredith shrugged her shoulders and looked to me to make sure her joke was okay with me. And for some reason, it was.

"You can't handle my inappropriate ways of coping. I don't see you as the type to shoot up," I said, taking part in the dark humor that would no doubt get me a lecture from anyone else.

Meredith smiled, and then wiped her eyes. "Did you see Owen today?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to go down this road with her, but, given the entirely ridiculous events of my life in the past couple of days I did anyway. "Last night after Alexa's surgery, I was going to wait for her to wake up, and he said he was going to wait with me. I fell asleep first though, and when I woke up this morning he was gone. So I went to my surgery and then when I went and found him he started talking about how it was too hard watching me throw away my relationship with Alexa and knowing I probably don't want any more kids. We fought a little, but he came by after to meet Alexa. And that was fine…"

"But…"

"But, I still have to talk to him about everything, tonight. And I just don't know if I'm ready to do that because I don't know if I'm ready for him to leave."

"I don't think he's going to leave, Amelia," Meredith said. "Especially after he just proposed to you."

"That was before he knew I was a lying teen mom with an insane amount of baggage," I stated. "I don't want him to leave. But I also don't know if I can put the energy into making it work right now. Alexa, she's…"

"Your daughter," Meredith finished for me. "I understand."

"She's my daughter," the word still felt weird as it rolled off my tongue. "And I'm trying to do what's right by her and I don't know that what's right is making her a part of my life when my life is like this. Screwed up."

"Trust me, Amelia, if you care for her and she knows it, that will be enough. There isn't going to be a time in your life where things aren't screwed up. So talk to Owen. If he leaves, he leaves knowing the whole truth, and at least you'll know."

I smiled at her, thankful. "I appreciate this, Mer."

She stood and took my cup, ready to leave. But she stopped at the doorway. "We'll get through this."

I nodded even though I was unsure.

* * *

After dinner, which was filled with glances from Derek that bounced between Meredith and I, I texted Owen and told him he could stop by whenever. I felt like throwing up and crying and many other things but I knew that this was something that couldn't be avoided, even if I ran away. I waited anxiously on the couch for the doorbell to ring, or for him to text me that he was outside on the porch, but it was ten o'clock by the time he knocked. Derek was in the office working and Meredith was trying to put Bailey back down so that left me to open the door. It took me an extra second to get on my feet.

As I opened the door slowly I felt an increase in my heart rate. And then I was hit with the unmistakable smell of beer.

Instead of letting him in, I came out to the porch and closed to door behind me. "Owen…"

"I'm not drunk, alright, I can actually control myself when it comes to drinking," he spat back. He hadn't brought my alcoholism into it but the implication was there.

I took a deep breath. "I just wasn't expecting you so late."

"Well, I wasn't expecting you to have a daughter, was I? But that isn't just it, there's more isn't there? Like the fiancé who died and the fiancé who you ran away from… what's in store for me? Huh?"

"Derek told you everything," I said, feeling my blood boil.

"He told me everything. Even the part about you dying for three minutes. You think it's okay to just leave all of this out?"

I didn't really even hear what he said after I made the realization about Derek. I was trying to look back on the day and figure out at what point Owen could have talked to Derek, but I couldn't because Owen had been acting like he didn't know up until now.

He grabbed my shoulders, not to hurt me but I cried out anyway because I wasn't expecting it. "Amelia? You think it's fine for you to not tell me any of this? God, I feel like I don't even know you!"

"No, I don't! That's why this whole thing started, remember? I wanted to tell you everything, but then Alexa came and I just… I was going to tell you tonight. Before my jackass brother got involved."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"Yes, you are, because I told you we could talk about everything tonight, remember? Or was that even you, because now you're acting like a completely different person," I said. "Why did you act like you didn't know all day long?"

"Because I wanted to give you a chance to explain. I was doing it for you."

"And now?"

"And now I realized I'm just too mad to let it go."

The smallest part of me was relieved that I wasn't going to have to tell him, and relive everything while I waited for him to react. The bigger part of me just felt completely defeated. "So, what does that mean?"

"It means that right now, I need time to think. More than you're giving me, because I can't be put on the spot like this," he said as he turned to walk back to his truck.

"Nobody is putting you on the spot! Owen!" I ran after him and grabbed his arm, trying to stop him. "Owen, please, just…"

He brushed me off and I stumbled backwards. As he got into his truck I wondered how it was possible that I was the one who first felt like this might not work out but now he was the one walking away.

* * *

I had been pacing, as was habit for me now, for at least twenty minutes of the hour that I had spent outside. It was raining in Seattle, no big surprise. Still, I didn't bother with an umbrella or a rain jacket and just let the rain numb me to my core.

It's a good thing, a really good thing, that the only way to get to the door was by using the stairs. If it were easy enough I might have just gone in.

After a few more cloudy minutes of muddled, emotional thinking I decided that it was not in my best interest to go into the Emerald City Bar. Then I talked myself back into it. Then out again.

It one of my clearer moments, I texted Meredith, who at this point, really, was my best friend. Yeah, Arizona was around but she wasn't aware of anything going on. I hadn't connected with anyone else the way I had in LA, except for Owen who was obviously out of the question.

Mer? Do you think you could come pick me up?

What? Where are you?

Take a wild guess.

Please, just tell me.

Joe's.

I'll be there in five.

As I waited for Meredith to come, I contemplated what type of story I would tell her to excuse why I was in front of the bar. In the end, I figured the truth was best because she was going to make her own deductions anyway. I was extremely grateful that she was coming to get me, no questions asked, but also nervous for what she would say once she got here. Was she going to kick me out?

Finally, after long agonizing minutes that I spent imagining the worst case scenario, her car pulled up to curb in front of me. I had forgotten all about being wet from the rain until I had to get into her car and most likely ruin her interior.

"Amelia, you're soaked?" she said it more as a question than a statement.

I looked over to her. "I was standing outside. I didn't go in."

"You didn't?"

I nodded my head. "I wanted to."

"But you didn't. What happened?"

"Owen came by. He had been drinking a lot, I could smell it on him. And he told me that Derek told him everything. So he knew, and then he left saying he needed more time to figure things out, and I just…" Tears were falling from my eyes, but Meredith was thankfully letting me keep my dignity and pretending to be overly focused on the road. "I knew this could happen but I was hoping I would have had the chance to tell him on my terms."

"I can't believe Derek did that. But I thought you said you talked to Owen earlier?"

"I did. He claimed he was pretending not to know so that I could have the chance to explain everything myself, but he was too mad to let me when he came by apparently," I said, shivering.

Meredith stopped at a red light and looked over to me, but her eyes travelled to my arm instead of my face. "Amelia…"

"What?"

Meredith accelerated again as the light turned green. "I'm going to tell you something, and I'm not sure how you're going to react, but you can't tell anyone. Seriously."

I didn't like where this was going. "Okay…"

"When Owen was with Cristina, he… well, you know he has PTSD. It was really bad at the time," she started.

"I know."

"Well one night, he, uh… he was asleep and he started choking Cristina. She said he didn't know what he was doing, but he was still dangerous…"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I just want you to be careful. I don't know that much about his recovery, and I've never seen him drunk, but they could potentially become a lethal combination," she said, eyeing my arm again.

I looked down to my upper arm. Finger print bruises had formed where he had grabbed my shoulders. I pushed my sleeve up a little to reveal the rest of it. I could see how it looked, now. "Meredith, I'm really fair skinned and he was just worked up."

"Okay," was all she said as she pulled her car into the driveway.

"Thank you for picking me up. I'm sorry it's so late."

"It's okay. I'm glad you didn't go in. I'm sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted them to."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hey guys! Just Amelia's perspective again, and Mer and Amelia again. As always all reviews welcome! Again, sorry it's late, I'm done with school May 18** **th** **so after that I'm all yours** **Enjoy.**

Amelia

I chuckled as I stopped outside of Alexa's room. It was 1 pm but she still wasn't awake. Avery said she could be discharged today, but I had already gone out for takeout and so I figured I'd eat lunch with her before she left.

As I debated going in, one of the nurses approached, rolling her eyes. "Gotta bring dinner by the time this one's awake."

"What, you've never slept in?" I joked. The nurse didn't answer but instead went into Alexa's room to draw blood for what would hopefully be the last round of tests for her for a while.

Alexa woke up groggily as the nurse asked for her right arm. I stood by the bed with the large bag of food in my arms, the grilled cheese and soup's warmth emanating through the bag.

"Morning," I said, smiling. "I brought Panera. I went with chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese, I figured it was a crowd pleaser. You like that, right?" I suddenly felt self-conscious about the choice I had made. What if she didn't like the things I picked?

"Thank you, Amelia. I love Panera."

I sat down in my usual chair as the nurse finished and told me she would put a rush on the labs so we could get out of here. It dawned on me that Alexa probably didn't have a way back to school. Her parents, her _real_ parents, were back in Massachusetts, and I doubted she had driven herself to the hospital. "Yeah, of course. Here," I said as I pulled the food out of the bag. "Hey, so, you're leaving today then? Going back to school?"

"Yeah, that is if my roommate can pick me up anyway. She's kind of a flake. Granted this wasn't exactly what she signed up for," Alexa answered.

"I can bring you back," I offered.

"Amelia, you don't have to do that."

"I know. I want to. Really, it's no trouble at all. I actually, uh… I was actually going to ask you if you wanted to come by and meet Meredith and Derek tonight. They're working probably until dinner, but we could do something first. Like go, I don't know, sight-seeing or something. You're probably going stir crazy in this room." I paused. "Sorry, I'm making a fuss."

"It's okay," she smiled. "That all sounds nice, but really I don't want to put you out. This is the second day in a row you've taken a half day. I don't want to mess anything up for you."

"No, don't worry about it. I don't have any other surgeries scheduled until Monday," I said in between bites of grilled cheese.

Alexa rolled her eyes, I couldn't help but notice. "Fine. But I have already seen almost all of Seattle. It's the first thing I did with the other exchanges. Let's do something else."

"Well jeez, you're already ahead of me. I haven't been to anywhere else in Seattle much since I've moved here. But how about a movie? What's playing? God, I don't get out enough."

Alexa grabbed her phone from the table and began browsing the internet for theaters and show times. I secretly hoped she wasn't huge into rom-coms because I hated those and was not super willing to sit through one.

"The Loft is playing at, uh… Regal Cinemas. The one down the street. It's a crime thriller. I like those."

I smiled. "Me too. What time? We're just waiting for your labs, we'll be out of here at three the latest."

"Three forty-five."

"Perfect," I said.

* * *

I was actually really thankful that we settled for a movie instead of sight-seeing. For one thing, I was really tired because of all the commotion for the past couple of days, so it was nice to just be able to sit and enjoy relaxing for a couple hours. And because the movie was the main focus of attention, there wasn't pressure on either of us to come up with awkward conversation. While I could tell we were slowly becoming more comfortable with each other, it was still hard to know what I should be doing in every situation. So far I've had it easy, she's only been in the hospital and I was able to talk medical. I knew this wouldn't be the case as soon as we got home.

After the initial novelty of being at a movie with my daughter wore off, my mind couldn't help travel to Owen. He was no doubt at work, he hardly ever took it off and as chief of surgery he hardly ever got the chance anyway. I wondered if he was thinking about me or if he had already made his decision.

If Owen left, I really didn't know what I was going to do. It's not like when I started doubting the engagement it meant that I wanted to break up with him. I was panicked. I just wanted things to have already worked themselves out instead of facing the fact that I basically lied to him about the things that have made me who I am today. Thinking about it now made me grip the arm rest a little harder than I needed to.

On the other hand, Owen has problems of his own and it might not be the best idea to be superimposing our troubles together. After the Cristina story, I couldn't stop thinking about the times I've found him talking to himself or thinking he was somewhere else. True, it wasn't fair to be nitpicking all of his problems, I had quite the set of my own. But the smell of beer on his breath had stuck with me as well.

As the movie started coming to its end, Alexa was whispering to me about who she thought did it and what seemed like a million other stupid things that I couldn't focus on because my head was spinning. After a minute she just looked forward again and stopped talking.

"Sorry, I'll be right back," I said, getting up and rushing to the bathroom. She looked hurt but at the moment I wasn't in any position to console her. Here I was, already doing something the wrong way. It was only a matter of time. I was never cut out for this. I'm not a good mother, something that would inevitably be shown to me soon enough anyway.

I opened a stall and slowly slid to the floor. I didn't care how dirty it was, I needed to ground myself. I might have thrown up, I wasn't sure of anything anymore. I was stuck in my head, talking myself in and out of everything, second guessing myself, hoping for anything to come along and quiet the thoughts. I knew what I wanted, and I also knew how to get it. My fingernails pressed into my palms. I couldn't buy drugs, I couldn't do that anymore.

After what could have been seconds or several minutes, I heard the bathroom door open. I bit my lip and prayed that the person would just get to their business and get on.

There was a knock on my stall. "Amelia?"

I let out a sigh. It was Alexa. I had no idea what to say, so I just opened the lock and let the door open out.

"The movie just ended… are you okay? I don't mean to be nosey, I just…" Alexa stumbled over her words. I couldn't blame her. It wasn't her job to be comforting me, it was supposed to be the other way around.

I smiled weakly. "I'm just thinking some things through."

Something then happened that I didn't expect. Alexa stepped into the stall and facing me, slid down to the floor next to me so we were sitting opposite each other. "I can tell."

"I'm sorry about before. A lot has happened since I saw you yesterday."

"You can tell me," she petitioned. "I mean, obviously that's up to you. But I know well enough by now that no one is perfect and everyone needs someone to listen to them sometimes. I know it probably seems stupid, confiding in a nineteen year old. I just would like to know about what's going on with you… because, we're… family."

"Alexa, you always seem wise beyond your years," I commented.

"It's a product of growing up too fast, I guess." There was a look that I couldn't begin to decipher between us, the best guess I had was a mutual understanding of what she had just said. Here was my daughter, who I hadn't been in contact for her whole life and so I hadn't been able to protect her from pain that she wasn't supposed to feel. Instead I failed her, making a choice for myself that cost her a fundamental relationship she needed in her life. Meredith had said that I can't blame myself for the fact that her adoptive mother happened to be too different for them to connect. There was just as big of a chance that Alexa would have loved her adoptive parents as much or more than she could have loved me and Mark. Still, I couldn't imagine my life without my mother. I would probably be lying in a ditch somewhere, overdosed on oxy and dead for a while before anyone found me just because of the sheer number of times I disappeared and didn't return for a few days.

I took a breath. "Owen came by last night, and broke it off… well kind of. I don't really know. That's what he wanted to do it seemed like, but he was also kind of drunk, and I'm…" I let the sentence trail off, stopping myself before we had to get into that dark territory and the explanations that accompanied it and wouldn't suffice.

"You can't let yourself get this worked up over something that's not in your control. At least, that's what my therapist says. I don't really know how much she knows though," Alexa smiled and stood. As I looked up at her, she put her hand out to help me out.

While I wish Alexa had grown up as happy as could be, in that moment I felt truly blessed to have a daughter who was so compassionate and understanding of me.

* * *

I had decided to make dinner for when Mer and Derek came home. I knew Derek still wasn't totally convinced but Meredith and I had sort of trapped him into it. Alexa was helping me out and together we had created some sort of pasta dish that slightly resembled alfredo. Whatever. I never promised to be a good cook.

We were setting the table as the door opened and I rolled my eyes. Of course Derek would have perfect timing, he was the golden boy.

"Smells good!" Meredith feigned which made want to laugh, if not for the awkward situation we were all in.

"Ah, yes, like burnt something or other," Derek commented and I suddenly wished we hadn't forced this on him. Still, I had hope that he would realize the importance of his relationship with Alexa. This was his niece, his best friend' and sister's daughter.

Alexa looked to me and laughed at what Derek had said. She didn't know any better, but I was willing to bet Derek would give her more than enough opportunity to learn that he was egotistical and not to be encouraged. I rolled my eyes in response.

"Derek, Meredith… This is Alexa."

Alexa stepped forward, holding her hands in front of her. She smiled and shrugged.

"Well, Alexa, it's very nice to meet you. We're all happy you came along to Seattle. If you'll excuse me, I have to wash up the kids before dinner," Derek said curtly and walked Zola and Bailey to the bathroom.

Meredith rolled her eyes. "Don't let him get to you, Alexa." She briefly touched Alexa's upper arm as a sort of greeting. "He'll warm up. He's just had a lot of stress lately… we all have. But if you see his forehead vein pop out, I would run for the mountains."

Alexa laughed and if she was uncomfortable I couldn't tell. We all sat down and waited for Derek and the kids. Once we were all sitting, and the commotion of doling out servings of food had settled, we sat in a bit of a silence.

"Ow!" Derek said, making it clear Meredith had kicked him under the table or something. "Uh, Alexa, where do you go to school?"

"UNH," she answered. "I'm a chemistry major. Hoping to go to med school, actually… you're all surgeons aren't you?"

"Ah yes, I'm sure Amy has mentioned that I was chief of surgery before she came along…" Derek said and I could sense the bitterness in his voice, but Alexa was holding her own.

"Change is good," she answered. When nobody said anything she laughed, and I thought I saw Derek actually crack a smile.

"Fair enough." Derek finally took an actual bite of the food and didn't spit it out, either, so by my account we were on a roll.

"I'd say medicine is certainly in your blood, Alexa. How long are you in Seattle for?" Meredith asked as she spoon fed Bailey whatever disgusting mush he was lucky enough to have tonight.

"Well, currently only until the end of this semester but I was thinking… I mean given everything here I thought maybe I'd extend that to next semester too. If that's okay, I mean," she said.

"Yes, Amy, is that okay? You prepared for that?" Derek said sarcastically. I glared at him.

"Of course it's fine," I looked Alexa in the eye. "You're always welcome here."

"Where is she going to stay for winter break? Offering my house up?"

"Derek, enough. Alexa, you can stay as long as you want, and you're always welcome in this house. Even over Christmas break. Don't let him get to you. It's not about you, he's misplacing some anger," Meredith offered as I let out a sigh of relief. Derek wasn't giving an inch.

"Thanks, but, I was planning on flying back to Massachusetts… That is, I was when it was a one way ticket. Now who knows?" Alexa looked nervous. "I'm sorry I brought it up. I didn't mean to impose. I can figure it all out later."

"Mommy, how is Alexa related to _me_?" Zola asked, and we all shared a smile.

"Alexa is your cousin, sweetie. Now eat some peas that Aunty Amelia made especially for you."

As we finished dinner, Derek was actually courteous enough to take everyone's plate to the sink and start the dishes. I followed him over. "So?"

"Jeez, Amy, you could give me some time before you pounced," he said. I bit my lip and didn't say anything. He shut the sink off and sighed. "Look, she's great. It's not her, I am just having a hard time accepting that she's yours and Mark's." Again I didn't say anything and looked over to the table where she was helping Meredith get the kids so they could go get ready for bed. "She's kind of like him, isn't she? And you. Sarcastic, but genuine."

Finally, I smiled. "I think you might know a thing or two about sarcasm yourself, there."

* * *

After everyone was cleaned up and settled, Alexa and I sat out on the porch in chaise lounge chairs. It reminded me of all the nights Addie and I had spent on her back porch, looking up at the sky. Seattle was colder, though, and so we were under thick blankets. It was peaceful nonetheless.

"Do you usually have Sunday's off?" she asked me.

"No. I mean, I do just as often as the other days I guess. We work for six days and then get two off. Most of the time we spend our off days in work anyway though, just because it might be the only time we can schedule a surgery or we want to go some research outside of our surgical docket. Things like that," I answered. "Why?"

"Nothing, I just figured it's getting kind of late and I didn't know if you wanted me to call my roommate to come get me after all, or if you wanted to go tomorrow, or… I don't know."

I smiled. "I'm a night owl. Eight pm is hardly late."

"I am too. I'm just imagining the fit that would be thrown if I asked anyone at home a ride back to school at this time of night."

"We can go tomorrow though. Mer won't mind if you stay in the guest bedroom tonight."

She smiled gratefully. "Okay. Thank you."

"Of course," I said. We sat in silence for a minute, though it wasn't awkward at all. It was one of Seattle's dry, clear nights and we were just taking in the sight. "Looks like we ended up sight-seeing after all," I added finally.

She chuckled. "That was corny."

"I know," I admitted. "Hey, tell me a story."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know… tell me about your friends going up or something. Tell me something stupid you did as a kid. Anything," I was thirsty to get to know this beautiful person who had become such a huge part of my life already in a matter of days.

"Well, one time in sixth grade my best friend at the time, Sam, and I got into this huge fight about something so stupid… Oh my God, I don't even remember what it was. But we were in the same homeroom and so we picked our lockers right next to each other. And all day I would wait for her to leave before I walked up to my locker. And I guess I was getting sick of it or something because finally I taped a note to her locker with all the things I was mad about hoping she would find me and apologize or at least write back. Little did I know, my history teacher, who was twenty two years old and totally handsome by the way, would pick it up instead. So he gave it to my homeroom teacher, and my homeroom teacher, being a crotchety old lady and all, kicked us out of study hall that day and made us work it out ourselves," she laughed as she finished. "It was so stupid. I was really mad that I missed study hall because I wanted all of my homework to be done, but Sam and I did end up working it out. And then my history teacher that next day asked me if I was okay now and I still remember feeling the redness in my face because I was partially in love with him. Now looking back I realize he was really awkward and I would never be with him anyway, but sixth grade me was… well. The story speaks for itself."

"Oh my God," I laughed too. "Yeah, I think at least some of my middle school days were spent daydreaming about Mr. Carson. He was the track coach. And married."

"Will you tell me about Mark?" she asked, and I was a little caught off guard.

"Sure… I mean he was Derek's best friend all throughout childhood. He was always saying how he spent more time with the Shepherds than with his own family. It was probably true. Derek and I have three older sisters… Nancy, Kathleen, Liz. They're drama queens. Anyways we were all pretty accepting to the idea of Mark… he was always just Mark, our other brother. He was… well he was kind of like Derek. Kind of like me, too. Egocentric at times, most times. Always obsessed with his looks. Sarcastic as shit. Derek and I were actually just talking about that one actually. And he was just… good. He was just a good guy. At least that's what I thought when I was sixteen. I stopped talking to him after that and then Derek got married and he slept with Addison which was this whole big mess but Derek forgave him so really it was just a mistake, I guess. He died a good guy."

"Wait, who's Addison?"

"Addie's is Derek's first wife. She's like a sister to me… I told her about you, actually. She was the only one besides my mother. I knew my own sisters wouldn't shut up about it, and besides at that point I was rocking the family screw up status. Addie lives in LA. She's helped me through a lot… God, I miss her," I realized I hadn't even told Addison about Alexa yet. I would have to call her tomorrow.

"Wow. Being an adult sounds like an episode of Real Housewives," Alexa joked.

"It is interesting," I agreed. "Tell me something else."

Alexa rolled her eyes at me for the second time that day. "Okay, like what?"

"Same as last time."

* * *

We must have fallen asleep outside because I woke up to the sliding door slamming shut as Meredith walked onto the porch. "Oops," she said as she struggled to hold three coffee mugs level.

Alexa sat up next to me, squinting at the bright morning. My guess was she wasn't used to being up this early. "What time is it?"

"Oh, about ten. I couldn't find you guys in your room, I figured you were out here. Glad someone is putting these chairs to use, we hardly ever use them." Meredith placed a cup on the table in between us and then handed us each one. "It's hazelnut."

"Oh, I don't drink coffee, but thank you Meredith," Alexa said, putting her mug on the table.

"What?" Mer and I both asked.

"Yeah… I don't know. Coffee is expensive and I don't like feeling jittery. I usually just drink water," she explained.

"Imagine that. A college kid who doesn't drink coffee. Huh," Meredith sat down at the foot of my chaise lounge. Alexa shrugged.

"Where's Derek? Isn't he off today too?" I asked.

"He's, uh… running some errands. The kids are at daycare. I figured I'd ride with you to UWash if that's okay. I'm due to get out of the house and hospital a little more," Mer said.

I looked over to Alexa, who shrugged again and smiled. "Sure."

"Okay, I looked up routes on the GPS and there's a breakfast diner we can stop at on the way if you want… it has five stars on Yelp! so I think it'll be good…"

I rolled my eyes. Meredith was making this her project now, probably to distract her from all the things going on with Derek. I let her go on as I walked inside, Alexa close behind. "I have some jeans and a tee shirt you can borrow if you want. They'll probably fit you. I'm short."

"Thanks," she said, following me upstairs. "This is your room?" She stood in the doorway as we reached my end of the hall.

"Yup."

"My walls at home are the same color. It's funny," she said, looking around. She picked up the picture of Charlotte and me on my dresser. "Who's this?"

"That's Charlotte. Char lives in LA too. She's my best friend since… yeah. She's my best friend down there."

"Seems like you've got roots everywhere," Alexa said as she put the picture down. "I mean, your brother and Arizona up here. And Mark was here at some point. And then in LA you've got Charlotte and Addison…"

"And Sheldon…" I thought outloud.

"Sheldon?"

"Sheldon's a psychiatrist who worked at our practice. I mean, I was friends with everyone there really," I explained. "Sheldon's a close friend though."

"Why'd you leave, then?" Alexa was pushing now, but it was okay. I would much rather she asked what she wanted instead of fearing some boundary.

"That's a story for another day. Here," I tossed her a pair of jeans and a really, really old No Doubt tee shirt. She smiled as she held it up.

"Oh my God," she laughed. "I actually really like No Doubt even though they're before my time. But the reunion album was kinda shit."

I hadn't had a chance to listen to the latest album but I was surprised at all the similarities that kept popping up. I never imagined she might like so many of the same things as I did. "Okay, we should get going."

After we were all ready, we were walking downstairs when I sensed something was up. Meredith was waiting at the bottom of the stairs giving me wide eyes as if I was supposed to interpret that.

"Mer, what's up?"

As I reached the bottom of the stairs I got my answer. There was Owen, standing by the doorway, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Hello out there to anyone who might be reading this. I know it has been almost a year since chapter four. Honestly, the end of school kicked my ass. Then I took some summer classes, then I worked full time, and then school started again. This story is very dear to me, though, so I continued to write. I can't promise any regular updates, or anything. I have plans for the next couple of chapters and vaguer plans for beyond, if you all would like but I just figured I'd post for anyone out there still listening. Thanks, reviews always welcome.**

 **This chapter jumps around a little bit, I'm just trying to prepare for what's to come.**

"Owen," I said blankly. "Uhh…"

"Amelia, can we talk?" He shrugged and gave Meredith a side eye. I couldn't really blame him, she was a little overly present lately.

Meredith looked at me. Alexa looked away. "It's not really a good time right now, we were just heading out and…"

"Of course, of course. I'll get out of your way. I'm parked behind you. Um, just let me know when you're available," he said.

When I was available? Why was he talking about this like I was scheduling a dentist appointment?

"Sure thing."

We awkwardly followed Owen out to the driveway, and he paused for a minute before getting into his truck. I practically dove into the passenger seat of Mer's Lexus and slammed the door.

"What do you think he wanted to say?" Mer asked as she started the car, eyeing Owen out of the rearview mirror to make sure she was clear before backing the car up.

"I don't know," I said. As much as Meredith had been really open and supportive lately, I wasn't particularly in the mood to talk to her about this. Maybe I was just tired and cranky, maybe I just couldn't take the time to think about it right then and there. After all, the last time I let my mind wander like that I was on the floor of a dirty movie theater bathroom.

"Well, he wasn't drunk this time so that's a plus," Mer added. I restrained my eyes from rolling out of my head.

"So, uh, what's this diner that you found Meredith?" Alexa asked from the back, changing the subject. "Is it like a local thing or a chain restaurant?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think it's local. All the reviews were talking about the earth-shattering waffles. I'm excited!" Mer looked over to me and smiled. "I mean, come on Amy we hardly ever get out of the damn hospital!"

"Mer, it's just waffles. Jeez," I held back a chuckle.

"No, Amelia, it's not just the waffles. It's the principle. We're going out to breakfast! We're taking time out of our life and doing a normal human activity for the first time in… I don't know, probably since med school."

"We did shit like this all the time in LA. Sheldon always called it a 'mental health outing'. Of course you had to drag Charlotte out in public with us, and even then she'd go off on a southern rant about how she didn't want to be seen with a bunch of babbling idiots. I kinda felt the same way but in the end they were fun."

"Well, I hate to break it to you guys but the last time I was out to breakfast was like two weeks ago, so, I think I win," Alexa said.

I caught Alexa's eyes in the side mirror and smiled. She smiled back, and I felt a little more calm.

The ride to the diner wasn't that long, but it was a small little joint off the highway so it definitely had the road trip feel. We were seated immediately because there was only one other couple there who were sitting at the bar. I secretly wondered what Alexa was going to order for breakfast and if would be anything I liked.

She got a water to drink, and French toast to eat. I pretty much liked all breakfast food, though, so I guessed I really couldn't count this one.

"So, Alexa, being from Massachusetts and all, I bet you're a Patriots fan?" Mer asked.

Alexa almost choked on her water. "I wouldn't say that. I hate football. I prefer my entertainment to have some substance."

Mer raised her eyebrows. "Well, you have to admit that the Super Bowl against the Seahawks was an interesting game."

"Eh. If you say so. I just go for the party food."

So she doesn't like football either. Not that I had the time to like football, even if I wanted to. It seemed like Owen was always finding a game… Sunday night football, Monday night football… did it ever end?

Owen…

"Well, please make sure you're 'partying' safely. It hasn't been too long for me to remember the wild college days…" Mer added, thankfully removing me from my thoughts.

I smiled. "Yeah, Meredith _thinks_ she was wild in college but I'm a little out of her league with all that."

Shit.

Normally my self-deprecating humor was either laughed at or ignored by the company I was keeping, but Alexa had no idea what she was in for here.

Meredith's eyes were wide as she looked at me. I cleared my throat. "One time, my whole dorm went across the quad and stole the lounge furniture from the boys' hallway. It was epic. And they couldn't punish anyone because there was no evidence as to who exactly was involved. I'm pretty sure my RA thought it was funny, though," I covered.

"Oh, sure, Harvard sounds like a total party pad," Meredith said. "We New Hampshire-ites know how it's done." She shared a sly smile with Alexa. A pang of jealously hit me but I brushed it off. It was ridiculous and I knew it; how many times had I shared a moment with one of Mer's kids?

But, on the other hand, she got to see her children every day.

"Okay, I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not much a of a party-goer. I don't know that many people in Washington who like to do more than watch Netflix and hang out. Which it totally fine with me," Alexa explained.

"Just be careful of the drug scene. It's big out here in Seattle, you know," Mer quipped.

I tried hard to keep my face frozen from fear of a conspicuous reaction to the drug mention.

"I know, I know. I promise… nothing worse than a little THC…" Alexa said suggestively.

"Alexa!"

I finally stepped in. "Meredith, calm down please. You sound like a gen-x maniac."

"Marijuana is a gateway drug!"

"With proven medicinal benefits!" I pointed out. "Parkinson's. Many forms of cancer. Need I go on?"

"Well she isn't using it medicinally when she's at college!"

"Guys, guys," Alexa cut in. "I smoke weed _rarely_ and when I do, it's only a little and I'm really careful."

I could tell by the look on Meredith's face that she was envisioning my daughter a few years down the road shooting something up. Addiction could be hereditary; we both knew it.

"You're an adult and you can make your own choices. We both just want you to be safe, is all," I said.

"I'm _fine_. Okay? The D.A.R.E. program was still popular when I was growing up. I know how to say no."

Just in time, our food came and I watched Alexa drown every square inch of her French toast in maple syrup. Mer used it sparingly on her waffles, which she couldn't stop raving about. I pushed some of my omelet around on my plate, but after the little tiff that just happened I wasn't feeling especially hungry.

My phone buzzed from my purse. At first I didn't want to check it, because I feared it was Owen "scheduling an appointment" to talk, but Meredith gave me a quizzical look. "Aren't you going to check that? It could be the hospital."

I grabbed my phone and tried _really_ hard not to roll my eyes as I discovered that the text was from none other than Meredith herself.

Don't you think you should tell her? Like, now?

The nerve of some people. I certainly wasn't a perfect parent but I didn't think I needed Meredith to tell me what I should and shouldn't be revealing to Alexa and when.

Not now. I will do it next time we meet up. Alone.

Didn't know if you'd want me for moral support.

I softened a little at that reply. Mer has been really, really good to me lately. I had my fair share of wishing Arizona was up to speed so I could talk to her about it, but overall Meredith was acting better than any of my other sisters ever had.

Then it dawned on me. Arizona was going to have to get caught up because I was going to have to introduce Alexa to her and Callie. Not just because of the bone thing in Alexa's arm, but because Sofia was her half-sister.

As we finished, Mer offered to cover the bill and I didn't feel like getting into that stupid thing adults do where they fight about who gets to pay. "So, Alexa. What does your schedule look like this week? If you wanted to grab lunch or something…"

"Yes! I do. I have a ton of work to catch up on though. I've been emailing my professors and I have some make-up exams scheduled… I think Friday afternoon could work? I'm done at noon."

"Perfect," I said. I didn't want to mention Sofia without clearing it with Callie and Arizona first. I figured they'd be fine with it but who knows? I've learned the hard way that you can't always count on expectations. "I can come pick you up at the school then? I'll see where your dorm is when we drop you off."

"Sure, that works. Thank you for breakfast, Meredith."

After such a big breakfast, we were all a little sleepy so the car was quiet. When we pulled up to UWash, Alexa directed us to her dorm building.

"Do you need anything else? Money? Anything like that?" I asked as we stood outside the parked car.

"I think I'm all set. Thank you again for everything."

"Alright. You have my number if you need anything. I'll see you Friday." We awkwardly hugged. I'm sure Meredith was watching curiously with popcorn from the driver's seat.

"See you," she walked quickly to the door and slid her ID. A minute later, she was gone.

I felt a slight sinking feeling but the prospect of Friday made me smile.

* * *

On the way back, Meredith was pretty quiet. I knew she didn't like to make conversation unnecessarily, but if I wasn't talking to her I would be thinking about Owen and those thoughts threatened to break me right now.

"Have you talked to Derek?" I asked. Going right in for the kill.

A thousand different emotions crossed her faced before she answered me. "You could say that."

"What does that mean?"

"We talked. I just don't know if it really resolved anything."

"Well did you tell him how you felt?" I asked.

"Kind of."

She was being really vague but I didn't blame her. I didn't know if it was because she didn't want to talk to me, or if she was still working through it herself, or what was going on.

"You're Derek and Meredith. While I haven't always liked you with my brother, purely out of blind loyalty to Addie, I have seen you guys together and you're going to be fine," I explained. I wasn't used to providing comfort for anyone. It wasn't that I didn't like to, people just didn't expect it from me because I was generally more screwed up than them. This being no exception, of course.

"You really think that?"

"Of course. Derek might be the world's biggest asshole, but he loves you a lot and you love him a lot, so it'll be just fine." What I was saying wasn't necessarily true (case in point: Owen and I) but sometimes words are enough.

Meredith sighed heavily. Maybe I had said the wrong thing after all.

"We've separated," she confessed finally.

"What?"

"He moved out the other day. As in, to DC. He took the job. I told him to. I think. I can hardly remember, with all the fighting, what I've said and what I've just been thinking. But I don't want him here if he's just going to resent me day in and day out. He needs to do this for himself. Maybe then we can work on us."

I bit my lip. I was stunned that he left without saying goodbye to anyone. But maybe he wanted a clean break. I can certainly understand that. "What did you tell the kids?"

"I told them the truth. Daddy has to go work in DC and he'll be back in a little while."

I noticed Meredith's fingers trembling on the wheel, until I looked up and saw her shoulders shaking too. She was beginning to silently cry.

"Do you want me to drive?" I asked.

That got her to laugh. "No way. I've heard the story about you totaling his car. Not happening."

I rolled my eyes. "I can drive _now_."

"I'm good. Swear." She wiped her eyes and went back to her normal strong as stone exterior. Something I've always admired about Meredith. "Let's talk about you."

I groaned. "Let's not."

"Okay well not about him but Alexa? You guys seem to be getting closer. That's good. Are you going to tell her on Friday?"

"That's the plan. I also want her to meet Sofia but I have to talk to Callie and Arizona about it first. Granted Alexa still wants anything to do with me after I tell her."

"She will," Mer said with confidence. "She'll be able to see that it's part of your past and it's an imperfection that you own. We all have them."

"Except Kepner, apparently. I swear, she has never gotten a pimple in her life!" It was true. Every time I see April she's bubbling with happiness and looks flawless. It might make me jealous, her being in trauma with Owen all the time, if she wasn't with Jackson and if I wasn't with Owen. Well. Whatever it was we were doing.

"Come on, don't play that game. Everyone has their fair share of shit. Even April. She's not a threat to you and Owen."

"I didn't say-"

"Sure, you weren't thinking that at all. Whatever you say, Amy. Amelia." She spat out my full name as if "Amy" didn't taste good on her tongue. Maybe it's because Derek was the only other one who ever called me Amelia. Can you say petty?

I just chuckled. "He's faithful, if not anything else."

Meredith didn't respond.

I cleared my throat. "Don't tell me…"

"Just once. They were in an awful place. He was drunk. It was just sex, he said. Anyway, Cristina took it in stride."

My head was spinning suddenly. "Can you stop the car?"

"What? I'm on the highway! We're going 90!"

"Please just pull over when you can. I'm going to be sick."

She pulled off the nearest exit and I promptly evacuated the car, bending my knees and throwing up. I instantly felt better, though.

"You okay?" Mer asked as I buckled back in.

"I'm fine. Your driving was making me car sick. Slow down," I joked.

"Derek claims it's fun," she said blankly.

* * *

I decided to call Addison and unload the whole thing when we got back.

Jake answered their house phone when I called. That was extremely awkward. "Hey, Amelia!" he said jovially. "Hope everything is alright. What can I do for you?"

"How are you, Jake? I was looking for Addison, actually." As if that wasn't apparent. I really liked Jake; he was a nice guy and good for Addie. But it was strange that I was calling in the first place, it'd just be downright absurd for me to be calling for Jake himself.

"Right, right. You're in luck, she just got back from St. Ambrose."

"Who's that?" I heard Addie's voice in the background.

"It's for you," came Jake's voice.

"Hello?" Addison said as she picked up the phone.

"Hi, Addie. It's me."

"Amelia? What's going on. Is everything okay?" she asked in a rushed tone. I didn't realize how much panic my call might have caused. I should have texted first.

"Everything's fine. Better than fine, actually," I said, but my voice cracked a little.

"Then why are you crying?"

So I let everything go. I told her about Alexa, and Owen, and how Derek had reacted, but I was careful to leave his and Mer's separation out of it. That wasn't my business. By the end of the whole thing, she was crying too.

"Wow, Amelia, I'm just so happy for you."

"Me too," I said.

"What's the plan? Is she going to move in there with you all?"

"I don't think so," I said defeatedly. "She has her adoptive family back home. She doesn't really get along with her mother, but it'd be weird for her to live here, don't you think?"

"Well, I think she's nineteen and can make her own decisions. From what I understand, she seems to really like you and it doesn't have to be a conventional relationship."

"I don't know. I don't want to push her either way. I just want to be there for her for what she needs. If that means she wants to live here then we can figure something out but for now… we're getting lunch on Friday. And she might meet Sofia."

"Might?" Addison asked.

"Well, at lunch I was going to tell her about… the past. The LA past and the past before that. She might not want to stick around after that."

"Hmm. Maybe not," Addie admitted. I was surprised. "But that seems unlikely. She knows by now that parents aren't perfect. Didn't you say she found you on the bathroom floor?"

"Yes, but she thought that was just the Owen stuff."

"Wasn't it?"

"A little bit of both," I confessed. "I could smell the alcohol on him when he came over after drinking that night. I almost had a drink myself. Mer picked me up outside the bar."

"You and Meredith have really been getting along, huh?"

"What are you, jealous? Jake's perfect for you."

"God, no, Amelia, I'm just joking. Jeez. I'm just glad that you have someone to talk to up there. It kind of seemed like you ran away from everyone down here," Addie seemed to have a hint of regret in her voice.

"I did."

"Right. So we were worried. But I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too. Tell Jake I said it was nice to talk to him."

* * *

Monday and Tuesday came and went. I was booked with surgeries and consultations that I finally just decided to make a plan with Arizona instead of trying to catch them both while they were free.

Can I come over for dinner tonight? You me and Callie?

Sure, let me ask Callie. Everything okay with Meredith? You two seem thick as thieves lately…

After it was assumed something negative had happened from both Arizona and Addison, I realized maybe I wasn't as good at keeping in touch as I thought I was.

Everything's fine. I have some things to run by you, is all. Not a big deal. 7?

I figured down playing it was the best chance I had at not worrying her and Callie.

When I got to their apartment at the end of the day, I realized that hadn't worked. They both seemed kind of weirded out. "Hi Sofia!" I asked her a couple of questions about how much fun she was having in school until she became uninterested and went back to watching a show I had seen Zola watch a few times.

I sat at their kitchen island. "Oh my gosh. I forgot to bring something. Wow. I'm the worst dinner guest ever. I'm so sorry, I can run out and grab-"

"Psh, it's fine. I'm making tacos. They're good. No need for anything else," Callie said.

Arizona's eyes widened and she nodded at me in agreement. "They're spectacular."

"So what's up? Is everything okay with you and Owen? Do you need me to kick his a-s-s for you? 'Cause I will," Callie started.

I smiled. "No, that won't be necessary, but maybe Derek's."

"You mean the white hot center of the universe?" Callie replied. "Gladly."

"Okay, okay, what kind of example are you two setting for our daughter who's right there in the next room? Play nice." Arizona opened a cupboard above the fridge. "Wine?"

I was struck frozen. "Uh, no thank you."

"Don't be an idiot, Arizona, put that back."

"Right! I'm so sorry." Arizona came over and sat next to me. "So, are you okay? What's going on?"

"A lot actually."

For the second time today I recounted the past week in detail. Callie got super mad when I mentioned how Owen came over with alcohol on his breath. Arizona's eyes silently searched mine for any hint of pain or anger but the time I was done I was kind of tired of the subject.

Of course that wasn't going to stop me from staying up all night thinking about it, but still. I was managed, for the moment.

"So is this a good thing? Your daughter?" Callie asked.

"Yeah. I think it is. We just have to take the next step… kind of the scary one, where I get all sappy and honest and see if she runs for the hills. Kind of like what happened with Owen."

"Do you know the father?" Arizona said.

I realized with horror that I had left out that key detail. "Um, yeah… that's kind of why I wanted to tell you both, actually."

"What? Who is it?"

I took a deep breath. "It's Mark. Alexa is Mark's daughter."

Arizona reacted about as normal as you could expect. Callie, on the other hand, was holding back tears. "Mark?"

I nodded.

"So you mean… Sofia… she's Alexa's sister?" Callie asked.

"Yes. That's why I wanted to tell you. I wanted to see if it was okay for Alexa to meet Sofia."

"Of course," Arizona said quickly.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry, I'm not upset with you or Alexa… it's just that I miss Mark and it's hard to believe there's another person out there who is his flesh and blood. Is… is she like him?" Callie asked between breaths. Her crying momentarily caught the attention of Sofia, but she ultimately decided the TV was still more interesting.

I smiled weakly. "More than you can imagine."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hello all. I got pretty inspired when I was writing chapter 5 and I feel awful that it's been so damn long since I have updated, thus, chapter 6. I hope you all like it. As usual, reviews (including critical ones) are welcomed and encouraged.**

 **Thanks again!**

Friday afternoon was here before I knew it. The week was a breeze as far as surgery goes. I was also pleasantly surprised with how good things went with Arizona and Callie…

On the other hand, I was doing everything possible to avoid Owen at all costs. Seriously. April asked me if I could do a consult in trauma one and I sent Edwards in to do what she could because I didn't want to risk going through the ER. Of course, if they _really_ needed me I wasn't going to put a patient's life at risk but so far my avoidance method has been successful.

He wanted to talk but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to see how Alexa reacted this afternoon before I talked to Owen. I didn't want to give him any false hope that Alexa would ever be a part of our lives in the way he wanted, even if that's kind of the way things seemed to be going.

We had been texting throughout the week like a couple of middle schoolers who just got their first cell phones. Alexa was always saying how bored she was in organic chemistry, because she was apparently miles ahead of the class and didn't need to even sit through the lecture. I told her that her professor might surprise her and offer up something she didn't pre-read in the textbook. She would reply an hour later with how boring her biology class was. She told me she was taking that because she was debating declaring a second major in neuroscience. I wondered if I had anything to do with that, which made me proud. It was fun to hear about her day. Even though, admittedly, it was a distraction at work.

It was also going to suck a lot more if she decided this wasn't what she wanted after all, after we spent the time getting closer and closer.

By eleven that morning I was getting more nervous than excited to see her again. I was dreading saying anything. I mean, I could have put it off, couldn't I? It wasn't totally essential that I told her right now.

I knew I was lying to myself.

So, I distracted myself with Meredith, who was in the attending's lounge, as I packed up and got ready to drive to UWash. "Hey," I started.

"Hey yourself," she said, writing something down from the tablet she was reading. "Lunch time already?"

"Yup. What's going on with you today? I feel like I haven't seen you lately." It was true. Even though I was living in her house, things weren't the same with Derek gone. Meredith had to pick up all the slack with the kids (my help was nothing compared to having their actual father) and work had been busy. Every day this week she had either gone in before me or came home after me, sometimes both. When I did see her, I was asking her what I could do to help and she seemed too tired for anything else. If my respect for Meredith was already there, it was tremendous now after watching her be a single parent for the last week.

It was also kind of weird that we were talking like friends, but also kind of not. Since everything has gone down, we've been confiding in each other a lot and it was really nice to be with my sister like that.

"Well you know how it is. Gotta get up and get the kids to school and daycare, and work, and make dinner, and give the kids a bath and put them to bed and by the time that's all done there's bills and laundry and cleaning and a million other things I should do but I'm just too exhausted. I wish Derek was here. It's been… okay… between us now that we've had space. But his absence is certainly noted."

I gave Mer a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry. Is there anything you want me to do? I really can help out a lot more if you need me too."

She finally looked up from her tablet. "Yeah, right. I'm not giving you anymore excuses to ignore the mess that's _your_ life. Having kids is exhausting but nothing my bed can't fix at the end of the day." She let the implication that I wasn't sleeping well hang in the air.

I guess it's not really an implication if we both knew it was true. "Sorry if I've been waking you."

"It's okay. I'm just worried. Have you ever considered taking something for anxiety? SSRIs aren't addictive."

I was kind of shocked at the suggestion. She was right, SSRIs aren't considered addictive but people still became psychologically dependent on them. I didn't want that.

"My anxiety is situational, not clinical. Besides, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a doctor here willing to write me a prescription for anything other than Tylenol." I briefly thought back to when news first got out. I'll never unhear the woman from NA yelling "She's a _drug_ addict!"

Meredith looked up at me again. "If you say so. Dr. Wyatt could probably help you out, though, if you wanted. Obviously do what you want. You know yourself better than I do. But you look like you haven't slept in a year and addressing the anxiety might actually help you sleep better. Given that's the only thing keeping you up."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Were you sick last night?"

I felt my cheeks go red. "Yeah, I was. I think I had the 24 bug from one of the kids, or something."

"But none of the kids were sick. And you threw up on Sunday, too."

"Because you were driving like a maniac and we'd just eaten a huge breakfast and you had just told me about Owen cheating on Cristina!"

With my impeccable timing, of course Owen picked that moment to enter the lounge.

His eyes were glistening with tears that weren't falling. "You told her? Meredith?"

"Owen…" I started. Only I couldn't finish. My throat felt like it was closing up. My vision got fuzzy around the edges.

"Of course I told her. You came to our house at ten at night screaming about all the secrets she's kept and haven't dared to look at yourself!" Meredith stood.

"Mer…" I tried again but neither of them were paying attention to me.

"You know what, Meredith, this has nothing to do with you! I don't have to explain myself to you. You've always just been a little too close to every personal situation I'm in and I'd like it if you just left us alone!"

"To be honest, Owen, I'm a little too concerned with what will happen if I _do_ leave you alone."

That was it. She couldn't take that one back.

"You… you really think I'd hurt Amelia?"

Meredith sighed. "Not physically."

I was gripping the chair harder than I should have been.

My head was spinning. And not in the, 'my head is full and things are a little overwhelming way', in the actual, I can't make out concrete objects way. My stomach lurched.

By now my silence must have gotten their attention.

"Amelia?" Owen said. "Are you okay?" He was kneeling by my chair in a matter of seconds.

I put my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands in an attempt to ground myself. It wasn't working. I could hear their voices but couldn't bring myself to answer. I started to panic, not being able to control my body. I started to heave and felt Meredith's hand on my back.

I woke up a few minutes later laying on the couch. Meredith was sitting at my feet, and Owen in the chair next to me. They had called in a cardiologist. _Christ_.

"You puked on my scrubs. And passed out. You were only out long enough for us to lay you down," Meredith explained.

The cardiologist went to put his stethoscope on my chest but I pushed it away. "I'm _fine_. I just got a little worked up. That's all."

"Just let him examine you, please, so we can be sure, Amelia," Owen pleaded. I sat up, not pleased.

Everything was – surprise! – normal. The cardiologist looked embarrassed and left as quickly as he came.

"Thank God," Owen said breathily. As if he was holding out on breathing until he knew I was fine.

It was pissing me off.

"What are you even doing here? You have an office. Can you just go please?" I said, crossing my arms.

Meredith looked surprised at my reaction. Well, too bad. It was making me mad that he hadn't given me a chance to explain myself and then showed up after drinking with no regard to how that would affect me. It was making me mad that he showed up unannounced Sunday morning and expected me to just be fine with it. It was making me mad that he was acting like he couldn't live without me right now, when a few days ago it seemed like he didn't give a flying fuck about what I thought. And it was making me mad that he went after Meredith when he found out I knew he cheated on Cristina, as if it was her fault he was unfaithful. Not to mention the fact that Meredith was right, he had kept that from me after everything else.

"Amelia, can we please just talk?" He begged.

"I don't want to."

"Will you ever want to?"

"Oh my God, Owen, I don't know! Can you just _freaking_ leave already!" I started breathing faster and Meredith looked stricken. I was getting livid.

"You need to go before she falls into vasovagal syncope again. This was clearly brought on by the stress of your presence," she said.

He looked back at me sadly but finally fucking left. I let out a sigh of relief. It was just me and Mer again.

"That was scary," she said once the door shut.

"Sorry."

"I mean it Amelia. I'm clearly not the world's model for mental health but you're putting too much stress on yourself. You're not eating a lot, you're not sleeping. You pass out at the sight of Owen because it's too much for you. I can tell you've lost weight because you've been throwing up all week, not just last night. I can see your hands shaking from here. I wish you'd just take something already. Or talk to someone."

"I talk to you," I pointed out.

"Unfortunately, my specialty is surgery and not psychiatry."

"I'm fine, Mer. I just wasn't prepared to see him is all. I just want to go to lunch with Alexa and get that horror show out of the way first." My head was pounding and my stomach still ached but I was sure eating something for lunch would help me on both accounts.

"No way, you're not driving to UWash alone."

"Are you kidding me? You said it yourself, it was just vasovagal syncope. It's not going to happen again," I protested, but I knew she was probably right.

"I don't care. I'll drive you. Hell, I'll be sitting at the booth behind you at lunch making damn sure you actually eat a substantial amount of food. I know you can't see it, but you're slowly killing yourself, doing this. You're taking years off your life by keeping yourself in such a stressful situation."

"What do you want me to do? Make it all disappear?"

"No," Meredith smiled like I was caught in her trap. "Take some SSRIs. And talk to someone. I'm telling you, Dr. Wyatt…"

"Fine! I'll make an appointment with Dr. Wyatt," I caved.

"See, isn't that better than shooting up some street drug or drinking yourself into a stupor?" she joked.

"Nope," I admitted. "I'd much rather be drunk right now."

On a serious note, Meredith added "Putting alcohol into right now would probably kill you."

* * *

On the drive over, I fell asleep with my head against the window. The kids always had some kind of pillow or blanket floating around in the back seat so I wasn't totally uncomfortable. Still, every time Mer hit a bump in the road I was ripped into consciousness. Once we got off the highway, it was a lot smoother.

"Amelia? We're here," she woke me up by shaking my shoulder.

I smiled. "Thank you for driving."

"I'm glad you could get some sleep in. Are you feeling any better?"

I texted Alexa that we were outside in Mer's car. Still, we were a little early. The traffic was a lot better than I was anticipating. "I was fine before and I'm fine now. I feel fine. I will be fine. I am fine. Okay?"

"Sure, sure, as long as I look past the fact that you have no mental stability at the moment," Mer quipped.

That brought me back to the intervention at Oceanside. " _As long as I overlook the fact that you're a_ giant _oxy addict_ ," Leni had said.

I couldn't help it. I broke down right there in Meredith's car. I think she knew it was coming but I certainly didn't. I hated crying. It made me look weak and vulnerable and people always felt the need to pity you or try and comfort you and it never worked.

Except Mer. She didn't say anything, and I was loving it.

After my disgusting meltdown was over, Meredith handed me a tissue to wipe my nose and eyes and I was back to looking strung out before Alexa even got to the car! Awesome.

"You coming to lunch too, Meredith? Cool," Alexa said, chipper as she climbed into the back seat. I turned around to say hi as Mer pulled the car onto the road. "You okay?" she asked.

I nodded. "We have a lot to talk about, is all." Alexa looked nervous. "Don't worry. Nothing has happened this week to change anything." I was careful about my wording there. "How were your classes this week? Did your make up exams go okay?"

"Yeah, they were fine. How was your week?"

"I won't lie to you. It kind of sucked. Work was fine. I haven't really talked to Owen since we saw him on Sunday…"

"Lies," Meredith put in.

I rolled my eyes. "I'll tell you at the restaurant. Or maybe Meredith can, since she loves being up my ass so much."

Alexa chuckled nervously.

"Sorry. It was all just a lot," Meredith said, which I appreciated.

We finally got to the place and sat down. I cleared my throat, hoping Meredith would take a hint.

"Uh, I'm going to run across the street to the store over there and pick up some things. Order me a lemonade and a BLT if I'm not back."

Alexa looked confused by the entire trip so far. "What's going on?"

I took her hand. "Like I said. Don't worry. Nothing has happened to change anything. There's just a lot of stuff I need to tell you, and well… I don't know how you'll react is all."

"Like what?"

"Let me start with today, I guess. What Meredith was referencing in the car anyways. Well. I was talking to Mer before we came to pick you up. At that point, I _hadn't_ talked to Owen since Sunday morning. But he came into the longue as Meredith and I were talking about something. Things got heated." I wasn't sure how much I should elaborate. Should I include the fact that we were talking about how my fiancé had cheated on his last wife? I didn't think it would make a difference. She knew we were in a bad place and that was really the gist of it. "I'm not saying this in a way that means I blame you or wanted anything that has happened to have happened differently, but I have been under a lot of stress lately. Things with Owen are rocky right now, Derek has been a jerk, and I have been worrying about how I was going to tell you about everything in my past. All at once, it just hasn't been good for me. I haven't been sleeping much or eating well. I passed out earlier."

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Alexa instantly asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just seeing Owen, I wasn't ready for it. I just wanted to get to this lunch with you. He and Meredith got into it a little bit and it was stressful and… wow, stress doesn't even sound like a real word anymore because I've said it so many times. But it is what it is. I'm fine now. Meredith still wanted to drive, though."

"So… what is it you wanted to tell me, though? About your past?" she asked. I looked down at my trembling hands. At least in a minute, this would be over with. Maybe she would demand that Meredith brought her back to school. Maybe she would disown me. Maybe she wouldn't know what to do. I supposed there wasn't anything I could do about that.

I took a deep breath. I suddenly wished I hadn't asked Meredith to leave. This would have been a lot easier with her here, on my side, in case Alexa wasn't.

"You're scaring me," she said after another minute of silence.

"Sorry. I'm scaring myself. It's hard to admit something like this to someone because there's always a chance you could lose them." I knew that did little to clear it up so I finally just got into it. "I'm… I'm a recovering alcoholic and oxycodone addict. I've been sober for about four years now. It started in high school. My dad when I was young, and I was the family outcast my whole life, and I just partied too hard in some desperate attempt to fit in somewhere. Well, I almost wound up dead. I mean, I was dead. For three minutes. Derek found me and was able to revive me… thank God. I got sober young, for a really long time. It wasn't until I started working with Addison and everyone in LA that I used again. My best friend Michelle killed herself because she had Huntington's and didn't want to degenerate more than she already had. And I broke then. My heart broke right in half. I started the oxy again, and found a guy who drank and did oxy with me. I loved him. I know it seems stupid because we were drunk and high all the time but I really, truly, loved him. My friends tried an intervention but Ryan and I left. That night we promised each other we would get clean so we could have kids and get married. We were going to have four kids… two boys and two girls. That way no one would be left out." I was crying but I smiled at this memory of Ryan. "We were going to get clean. We said the last dose we had would be our last. But Ryan died that night from asphyxiation by choking on his own vomit. I woke up… and he was gone. He died. Ryan died. We almost made it. But he died. I went to rehab and haven't touched the stuff since then. But I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to when I found I was pregnant with Ryan's baby. And when I found out he had no brain. And many times, after that." I looked to Alexa to make sure she wasn't about to bolt out of the door. "But I haven't in four years. I've had some drinks since then… slips… but I'm always working on recovery. I'll always be an addict and an alcoholic. And I'm telling you because it's hereditary and because if you want to be in my life, and want me in yours, then I want that too but this will always be a part in my life too. It scares a lot of people away."

Alexa was crying. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

She seemed like she wasn't going to run. A waitress caught my eye but decided it was probably better to give us a few minutes.

"I didn't know how you would react. I still don't know. What are you thinking? It's okay to be honest with me. I can take it." In fact, I would prefer harsh words now instead of snarky backhanded comments down the road.

"I just feel awful that you think I wouldn't want to get to know you because of that. Because you've had awful experiences in your life. To be completely honest, it's a relief that you've told me. My adoptive mother… is essentially an alcoholic. And I hope that doesn't downplay what you're saying, because that's not what I mean. But she'll never come to terms with it. She can't admit there's a problem. You're helping yourself and trying and that's all anyone can ask you to do. Including me."

She got up from her side of the table and hugged me. It wasn't awkward or weird. It was right.

I let out a breath. "That's a relief." We both laughed until our stomachs hurt. I genuinely felt a lot better having let this off my chest. "On a serious note, I don't plan on slipping again but that's the things about slips. You never know. So, it might get scary sometimes. There might be times where… I'm not myself. Or I'm not good enough."

Alexa smiled softly. "You're already good enough."

I wiped my eyes for the second time that day. All this crying was starting to dehydrate me. I finally waved the waitress over and ordered our drinks, including Meredith's lemonade, and texted Mer that she was in the clear.

"There's something else," I said.

"Oh, God!" Alexa joked.

"Nothing bad. It's just, uh… Mark, your father, he had another child before he died. With Callie, Arizona's wife?" She nodded that she remembered. "Her name is Sofia. She's your half-sister."

"Wow. So, she lives with Arizona and Callie, then? Can I meet her?"

"Absolutely. We can go this afternoon if they're home, if you want."

Just then Meredith came back into the restaurant. She caught one look at me and must have realized things were okay on this end of my life.

"What are we talking about? Juicy UWash gossip? Any cute boys?" she joked.

Alexa rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. Boys drool over mono and tonsillectomy patients. Major hemorrhaging? Sign me up!"

"Did you tell her about you know who?" Mer asked. I wasn't sure which "who" she was referring to so I shrugged. "Derek and I are separated," she started simply.

Alexa gasped. "What? I hope this isn't because of me coming here…"

"No, not at all. There was a lot of other stuff going on before you got here. Of course it's not your fault," Mer answered. "I just thought you should know so it wasn't confusing later. But yeah, that's us. A big bucket of crazy."

"At least I know what I'm signing up for," Alexa joked.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hello all. My apologies for how the texting is formatted in past chapters, I usually underline it in my word processor and I always forget it doesn't transfer over into fanfic.**

 **At last, the long awaited Owen confrontation is in this chapter.**

 **BTW if you'd like to follow me on tumblr I post a lot of Grey's and Amelia but not exclusively, anyway my url is: themooninvitesthe-madness**

 **Enjoy this chapter. I'm off spring break next week so I'm not sure when the next update will be (let's hope not another year later lol sorry).**

 **Thanks, I really appreciate all the readers. Please review and let me know how I'm doing.**

After lunch I was drained from all the annoying emotions but Arizona had texted me that she and Callie were both home with Sofia, so I could bring Alexa over. I knew they had both probably planned this; it was rare that they had time off at the same time. I didn't blame them for being excited, I was just still reeling from lunch that I wasn't in the very best of moods.

Alexa was practically bouncing, though. Mer offered to drive us. I wondered how long she thought she was going to babysit me. Probably until I started acting like an adult, and who knows when that would be?

We pulled up to the house and Arizona was already out of the front door before Mer put the car in park.

"Hey, you guys!" she called from the steps. When I got out of the car I heard Callie ask "They're here already?"

Sofia was standing shyly by the door, behind Arizona. I smiled and waved at her. And we all walked up. As excited as Alexa was, I heard her take a deep breath before we entered the house.

"Hey!" Callie said from the kitchen. Arizona shuffled us to sit in the living room.

"Hi, Callie," Meredith answered.

Sofia tapped Meredith's leg. "Where's Zola?"

"Zozo is at home but we can plan a playdate soon, okay? But today you get to meet someone really important, huh?" Mer was natural with Sofia. Sometimes I felt like I was trying a little hard to get her to like me.

That was Alexa's cue. "Hi. I'm Alexa." She bent down to Sofia's level and gave her a big smile. "I like your shoes. I had some just like those when I was younger."

Sofia looked at her curiously. "How old are you now?"

Alexa laughed. "Nineteen."

"That's old!"

Arizona's eyebrows shot up. "Oh so Mommy and I are old too?"

"Uh-huh," Sofia nodded. We all laughed.

Callie came back out from the kitchen. "Sorry, I was finishing the dishes from lunch. Sofia, do you know who this is?" Alexa's face turned beet red. Sofia shook her head. "Alexa is your sister. Her daddy was your daddy. And her mommy is Amelia."

Sofia looked to Alexa and then to the ground. "I miss daddy."

We all kind of took a second to appreciate the loss of Mark Sloan. I had been thinking about him all week. How I was introducing his eldest daughter to his younger daughter. He would have loved having the whole family together. He would have made Derek come over, too, and enjoy himself whether he liked it or not. Everything was incomplete without Mark.

"What do you like to play, Sofia?" Alexa asked.

Sofia smiled. "Princess is my favorite."

"Want to play right now? I can be the knight who has to guard the castle." I had to give it to Alexa. It seemed like she knew what she was doing.

Sofia reluctantly agreed and showed Alexa to her room down the hall, leaving Mer and I with Arizona and Callie.

"She's doing really well with her," Callie commented.

I nodded my head. "Yeah, she certainly doesn't get that from me."

"Oh, come on. My kids love you!" Meredith pointed out.

"I guess. I never got the chance to see with her."

"Oh, trust me, you're lucky you missed the toddler years with her, what a mess," Callie said. I stared at her for a second. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean…"

"Yeah, I know. It's okay. It's my own fault."

Arizona gave me a sympathetic smile. "At least she's here now. Does she know about…?"

I nodded, putting my hands in my pocket because they had started to shake a little. It was all the talk of Mark and the past, that's all. "Yeah. I just gave her the whole ugly truth over lunch. She took it well."

"So now that that's off your to-do list, are you going to talk to Owen?" Mer asked.

I sighed. "At some point. I could really just use a nap right now."

Meredith put her hand on my forehead. "Are you fatigued?"

I rolled my eyes. "Mer thinks I'm dying, apparently, because I'm tired," I said pointedly to Arizona and Callie.

"Yeah, well, she's probably overcompensating her parenting since Derek is in DC now," Callie said. I laughed.

"Wait what?" Arizona said.

"Oops. Sorry. Can't seem to keep my mouth shut today." That's one thing Callie and I definitely had in common.

Mer rolled her eyes. "We're separated. Temporarily, anyway."

"I'm so sorry. If you ever need us to watch the kids, or anything…" Arizona smiled sympathetically.

"Yeah, babe, I already told her all of that actually so," Callie joked.

"It must be nice to be _so perfect_ ," Arizona joked back. We all laughed. It was refreshing to be amid a stable and healthy relationship after the past week-ish with Meredith and I.

"But anyways, Amelia acts like I have _no reason_ to be worried. She passed out this morning, though," Mer explained.

Arizona gasped. Callie looked at me with pity in her eyes. Gross.

"Right, and we both agreed it was nothing and that I'm fine so I don't know why you're bringing it up again."

Callie laughed. "Damn, it's like you're married to she-Shepherd now. You two fight like it, that is."

I groaned. "Don't call me that."

"We do not!" Mer said at the same time. I looked at her and chuckled. It really had been quite a journey with her lately.

"Let's talk about you guys, please. I would give anything to not think about Owen for a good five seconds or so," I pleaded.

"Uh, well. Oh! Sofia asked if we could get a puppy today when I picked her up at kindergarten. I looked into it and there's a dog park a couple blocks down and one of our neighbors has a four-month-old black lab puppy. So it seems like it'll check out. Hopefully we can surprise her for her birthday," Callie said excitedly.

"Oh, we're getting a dog? No one keeps me in the loop, apparently," Arizona laughed.

We kept up the small talk for a short while longer, until Sofia and Alexa returned. The whole time, though, I was thinking about Owen and how to get my hands to stop shaking. I knew what would help, of course, but it was a temporary fix and I could do much better.

Right?

* * *

 _A few weeks later_.

Alexa had decided to go back to Massachusetts for her winter break. She had been spending every weekend at Meredith's, though, which was good. We were almost inseparable, now, even though I had been scheduled for a few shifts on the weekends. Arizona, Callie, Mer, and April were pretty good about trading with me, though. They could all see how important it was to me to spend time with her.

Which is why I was a little hurt when she told me she wanted to go back home for winter break. Logically, I understood her reasoning. All her friends were there, and she had to go back to her real life at some point. It was kind of a slap in the face by reality, though, when I realized my daughter was going back to her real _lawful_ parents.

Derek was back from DC, at least for while. He and Meredith patched things up fairly quickly with a lot of discussion and a lot of make-up sex that could be heard at the right angle from the wall in my room. He was a little warmer to me than when he left.

On the other hand, I still hadn't talked to Owen. I meant to, I really meant to after I had lunch with Alexa that day but the time would come and I would chicken out. A couple times I had cancelled on him, but then I think he stopped expecting me altogether. I always rationalized it to myself by saying that I didn't want it to take time from Alexa, or I wasn't ready to see him when I was so tired after a long shift. Meredith was always encouraging me to just get it over with, but I swore to her I would try when Alexa went home for the winter, to return after four weeks for her next semester in Seattle, which had thankfully gotten approved before she left.

So here we were, the second weekend without Alexa. I had to work both days but Friday night I was up late anyway.

I wanted to text Owen and tell him that I wanted to meet up and talk. It seemed silly because he was in the trailer that was literally on the property, but we had gone without communication for too long.

I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was sitting at the kitchen counter in the dark.

I was hyper aware that there was a bottle of tequila in the liquor cabinet. Usually not my stuff, but a vodka tonic was out of the question because that was my telltale drink. No one would miss the tequila. While Derek and Meredith were made up by most accounts, she was still digging in a little more than usual. I could probably get away with it.

Just as I got up from the counter stool, the lights to the kitchen flicked on. I was expecting it to be Mer, but I was kind of indifferent when I saw Derek instead.

"Amy, what are you doing?"

I wasn't standing particularly close to the liquor cabinet so I don't think he suspected me. Although, he was usually suspicious of me without grounds so who knew.

"Can't sleep."

He sighed. "Me neither. You talk to Hunt yet? He looks like a lovesick puppy." I hated that he knew what was keeping me up, although it wasn't that hard to figure out.

I shook my head. "I want to. But whenever I go to text him I freeze up."

"It's been too long. Every day you go without talking, it makes it easier to ignore. And then eventually you won't even want to talk to him."

"I think I should return the ring to him."

Derek frowned at me. "Is it that bad?"

"I love him. But I love Alexa. And I don't know if I can do both at the same time without disappointing someone. I'm trying to do right by her but he doesn't think that's enough, and he wants more kids but I feel like I have my hands full with her. And then there's the whole "me being a giant liar" thing. It just seems stupid to keep the engagement on. If he even still thinks it's on."

"God, you remind me of Mer so much. Just talk to him, already. It's worse to string him along."

I caught his eye. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"Not intentionally."

I wasn't apt to take advice from Derek, relationship or otherwise. It almost always resulted in us arguing no matter the outcome. He was a big egotistical asshat and I was proud. It could be the stupidest thing and we'd be arguing about it a year down the road. It annoyed the hell out of our other sisters and our mother, but I always thought it was funny that we were so alike and so different at the same time.

Still, I knew he was right. I had known it since I walked away from Owen the morning we first drove Alexa back to school. There wasn't going to be an easy time to do this.

"Just text him from my phone for me. I'll never do it myself."

I handed him my unlocked phone. He looked at me. "What do you want me to say?"

I shrugged. "Just ask him if he would be willing to talk tomorrow after my shift."

"Done."

Derek handed me back my phone and I immediately saw the three dots pop up to indicate he was typing. I wonder if the text had woken him up, or if he was already awake. It was really late.

I'd love to, just as long as you'll actually show. Please. Just show this time. I miss you.

I told him I'd be there, but truthfully, I wasn't going to think about it again until after work.

"What'd he say?" Derek tried to read my screen. I playfully pushed him away.

"Thank you, that's all the involvement I need. Don't make me regret it." I walked down the hall to my room, thinking to myself how that encounter with Derek had actually gone well. I didn't dare think about tomorrow night.

* * *

Stephanie had been doing all the aneurysms herself, and I didn't have any big surgeries planned so the day went by faster than I'd have liked it to. By the end of my shift, it was finally starting to hit me.

I hadn't talked to Owen in 34 days. When we had to work together, we exchanged the bare minimum and that was it. He had sent me some texts outside of the failed invitations to talk. Some I could tell were drunken. Sometimes April texted me and asked me to talk to him. I could tell her heart was in the right place, and that she was in a bad spot between the two of us, but I wished she would stay out of it.

Arizona had been telling me all day to relax about it, because Hunt "loved me like crazy" but I didn't know how true that was after what I had been doing to him.

Meredith, on the other hand, offered to drive a getaway car from wherever we were meeting. She seemed disappointed when I explained that we would probably just talk on the porch or something. I think the whole "sisters in solidarity" thing was more fun than she'd had in a while.

Just breathe. In and out. You can do this. You _have_ to this.

I wasn't going in confident.

I carpooled home with Meredith and Derek. He was going off about the craniotomy he had scheduled for tomorrow. Even that didn't get my full attention, though. He was just saying his usual crap about how much better at my job he was than me, in different words, and looking for applause. I loved him but that was something he was going to have to work on.

We got to the house. I squeezed my hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

I was squished in the back seat between the kids car seats, so there was an extra second before I could get out. I didn't see Owen waiting on the porch right away.

But when I stood outside the car and caught sight of him, my knees buckled and I almost fell to the ground, except that my knuckles were white because I was grasping the car door so hard.

Zola caught a second wind and jumped out of Derek's arms and ran up to Owen. "Hi, Owen! Are you coming over for a sleepover?"

Owen chuckled. "No, I'm here to talk to Aunty Amelia. But maybe someday soon I can take you and Sofia to get some ice cream?" Zola nodded, satisfied.

"Come on, Zo, let's get to bed. It's getting late," Mer said, reaching out her hand to guide Zola and the rest of her family inside.

I stood by the car door.

Owen's eyes were soft. "Amelia."

I couldn't move.

I waited for the front door to close behind Derek. The lights in the kitchen shut off, but the deck lights in the back came on. Owen started to walk back there but stopped when he realized I wasn't following.

I was still gripping the car door.

He didn't say anything, but came over and reached out a hand. I put my right hand in his, but I was still holding onto the car. He gave me a small squeeze.

"What are you so afraid of, huh? It's just me… I love you Amelia. Please, just come talk to me. We don't have to go out back. We can talk right here, if you want."

I nodded and slid against the car, sitting on the ground. He sat down across from me, reaching for my hand again.

I put my head in my hands instead.

We were silent until I lifted my head and looked at him again.

And I started laughing.

I just uncontrollably started laughing and laughing and could not stop. It was a nervous reaction, and highly inappropriate, but every time it started to die down I just started laughing harder. Tears were leaking from the corners of my eyes.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry," I said breathlessly. "I don't know why I'm laughing. I can't stop."

Owen looked confused for a minute, but he started laughing too. And we went on like that for a few minutes until we both stopped.

"I don't think we should be engaged right now," I started.

He frowned but nodded his head in agreement. "You can keep the ring. I have a feeling we'll be using it someday."

"Okay." I really didn't know how to answer that. The ring was in the box in a drawer in my dresser.

"How's Alexa?"

I smiled, despite everything. "She's great. Really great. I miss her, though. She's at home for winter break."

"April mentioned she's been spending weekends here?"

"Yes. Things are better with Derek in that area as well."

"I'm glad, Amelia."

I nodded. It seemed like we weren't getting anywhere. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. My life… just…" I didn't have the word so I made an explosion sound and mimicked it with my hands.

"I'm sorry I came over after drinking and yelled at you. That was stupid and I know better. It won't happen again."

My turn. "I'm sorry I kept everything from you, but I hope you believe that I was going to tell you that night."

"I believe you. I'm sorry I didn't at first, though. And I'm sorry I took Derek's word over yours. I'm sorry I compared you to Cristina. You don't need to be like either of them, Amelia. I love the person that you are all on your own." He reached for my hand yet again, but this time I let him take it. Warm and comforting, just like him.

"I don't think I can have another kid. With everything going on with Alexa… and what happened last time… I'm done. I can't do it again, Owen." Finally, the ball has dropped.

"I know it's not a good time right now, but maybe we can think about it down the road?" he pleaded. It broke my heart.

I felt the tears lining my eyes. "I can't."

"You're not alone this time, Amelia. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know. But Owen, if anything happened… it would kill me. I would not make it through."

"Nothing's going to happen."

"You can't know that!" I exclaimed. "I can't take the risk."

He looked defeated, for now, though I had a feeling this wasn't the end of this particular topic.

"What's the plan?"

I shrugged. "I keep being there for Alexa. We stay at Mer's because she has a bedroom for Alexa here. You and I…"

He smiled half-heartedly. "We try and talk tomorrow?"

"Yeah. We try again tomorrow. This was a good start. Is there anything you want to ask me? I want to be honest about everything with you, Owen."

"Is she ever going to be your daughter?" I knew in what way he meant it. The truth was I wasn't sure.

Before I could tell him that, Mer came running out to us carrying to house phone.

"Amelia?"

I stood. "Who is it?"

"Alexa."

She handed me the phone. "Alexa?"

"Amelia, I-I-I… can you… are you home?" Her voice was broken up by the sound of her teeth chattering.

"What's going on?" Owen asked me.

"I'm at Mer's, yes. What's happening? Are you okay?"

"I told them about you. Oh my God, I'm so stupid. I told them about you and… things got really bad and I just had to get out of there, so I had my friend pick me up but then I got even more stupid and impulsive and I got on a plane and-and-and…"

"Are you at the airport? I'm on my way."

She was crying. "Thank you, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so, sorry, Amelia, thank you so much, I'm sorry."

"I'll see you soon."

Meredith had picked up on what was happening and ran inside to get her keys. I looked to Owen.

"Do you want me to come?"

I pondered. Alexa seemed pretty shaken, it might not be the best idea to bring Owen when they hadn't really ever talked. On the other hand, I wanted them to spend as much time as possible together if they were both going to be in my life.

I didn't really decide, he just got in the car before I answered. Mer drove, I sat passenger, and Owen was in the back, holding my hand the entire way there.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: A new (short) chapter because it might be the last one for a while… sadly I have to resume classes on Monday so I will have significantly less time to write… I'm still going to try, though!**

 **As always, please review. Thanks again.**

"So what did she say happened?" Mer asked once we got on the freeway. I was half out of my seat, one arm stretched out to Owen in the back seat and the other hand in my pocket.

"She said she told her adoptive parents about me. I guess they didn't take it well. I don't know. She was hard to understand."

I turned to the backseat and caught Owen's eye. "This isn't your fault, you know?"

I just nodded. It wasn't my fault about the way they reacted, but it's my fault Alexa was ever in that position to begin with. It all kept coming back to my decision to give her up.

"I'm sure she's okay. Just upset, but we're on our way so there's nothing to worry about!" Meredith tended to err on the side of optimism, besides with her own life. Still, it was reassuring. And she was right. There wasn't anything I could do until we got there.

We were silent for the rest of the ride. I pulled my cell phone out and scolded myself again for having it on silent. I could have answered her first. But at least she knew she could call the house, even if Derek answered.

I wondered if she would be upset that Owen came.

We finally got there. It was pretty crowded because it was a Saturday night and the most popular airline in the city. She had texted me where to meet her, though, so Meredith parked the car and we all went in.

I was practically running but Mer and Owen weren't keeping up so I had to slow myself. It was annoying. Couldn't they see this was a dire situation? I just wanted to get to my daughter.

When I finally caught sight of her, I gasped. She was wearing a baseball cap to try to hide some of her face, but her appearance was still striking.

She was hunched over slightly, holding on to herself tightly and breathing heavily. She must have been in pain. Underneath her eyes were the unmistakable startings of bruises. The deep purple color traveled up the sides of her nose. She had a little dried blood under her nose on the right side of her face, but you could tell she had tried to clean it up.

I paused for a second, caught up in the anger racing through my veins and the sorrow penetrating my bones. She hadn't seen me yet. I barely registered Meredith mumbling "my God," behind me. Owen put a hand on my shoulder.

They stayed a short distance behind me as I started towards her. She finally saw me and seemed to sink into herself even further, if possible.

When I reached her, she started crying again. "I'm so sorry, Amelia…"

I shook my head. "Oh, baby," was all I could manage. I took her into a tight embrace. "You have nothing to apologize for," I whispered in her ear. "We've got you now." I couldn't squeeze her tight enough. I felt her practically collapse into me. "I love you, Alexa. I've got you. You're safe."

I put my hands on her upper arms and faced her. "It was my fault, I shouldn't have said anything…"

"No," my voice broke. "It wasn't your fault. You can't believe that for a second." I turned to Meredith and Owen.

"Alexa, it might be best if we got you checked out," Mer smiled sadly, but extended her arms to Alexa. They hugged for a minute. I caught Owen's eye. He was doing that thing when he's mad where his head shakes a little bit and he's not looking at anything in particular.

Alexa carefully wiped the tears from her eyes with her thumbs. Her breath was still shaky. "Do I have to? I just want to go to bed."

"Your nose might be broken, sweets. And that cut may need stitches." I was trying to be as gentle as possible but there wasn't anything gentle about what happened to her and how it looked now.

"Not to mention, we'll have to file a report against your parents," Owen added. Alexa flinched.

" _Owen_ ," Meredith hissed.

"What? We're going to have to, right? People like that don't deserve kids, Meredith!"

Alexa was clutching Mer's arms still. "It wasn't him. He wasn't there. It was just my mother."

Mer sighed. "Let's just go back to the house. We can call Callie over and she can check out your nose at home. We'll clean up the head lac and if it looks too deep we'll go from there."

I didn't want to ask, but it would have been irresponsible not to. "How hard were you hit?" I was keeping my voice low but we were already somewhat of a scene in the airport.

"I don't know. It was just once. She threw a bat but it didn't get me head on."

I winced. "We're going to have to go in. You need head scans. You could have a concussion. We should check to see if there are contusions."

Her bottom lip trembled. She bit it keep it from quivering. The pace of her breathing picked up again. She nodded. I wanted to start asking her about her symptoms but I didn't want to scare her even more, and I knew there was once again nothing I could do until we got to the hospital.

Mer wrapped her arms around Alexa's shoulders. Oh, I was so grateful to have another person here who cared about Alexa so much. "We can be discreet. We'll only have Callie and Derek check you out, okay? Not a lot of people have to be involved."

I looked to Owen, who had been silently seething. "Derek is still family," he said.

"Owen. Please," I begged. I didn't want to put this girl through more than was necessary. And we weren't even operating, just getting scans.

He put his arms back by his sides from their crossed position. "Alright."

"We should really get going, then. Are you okay to walk?" Mer asked as Owen picked up Alexa's suitcase and extended the handle.

Alexa smiled slightly. "I did take a plane all the way here. I'm okay for now."

In the car, though, I could tell this was going to eat away at her in a more sinister way than physical pain. I sat in the back with her and held her shaking hand. She jumped at every siren and car horn.

I wanted to tell her that she was going to be okay, but I didn't want to make a promise I couldn't keep.

* * *

Owen coming ended up working out in that he could essentially bypass admittance for the time being and we were able to get her into a room until CT opened.

She was sitting up and talking, not complaining about any pain that wasn't superficial, and her pupils were even so these were all good signs. Still, I kept picturing a spinning bat hitting her in the face. God. How could someone be so evil?

I was in the room with her. Mer, Owen, Derek, Callie, and Wilson were all waiting outside pretending to look busy. I didn't mind Jo, but I wouldn't have had her here if it were up to me. She was just in the right place at the right time and caught on to what was happening. Better her than another resident, I guess, besides Edwards.

Callie had declared her nose indeed broken, but it was just a fracture and didn't need to be set. Ice and elevation.

"How much longer until we can go?" Alexa asked.

I felt sorry that I didn't have an answer that would make her happy. "A while. We still have to get your scans and look at them. And there's a line for CT. I don't want to do an MRI because that might take an hour in the machine to get a good scan."

"Shouldn't Derek be making these decisions, technically I mean?" It was an innocent enough question, but just another reminder that I wasn't in control of something that, incidentally, he was.

I nodded. "Well, we both agreed a CT would be better for you."

The blinds were shut in her room but I could hear someone approaching the door. Wilson cracked it open a little. "Can I draw some blood?"

"For what?" I asked. She opened the door a little more.

"Just to make sure. Hunt suggested I run a trauma panel."

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Alexa?"

Alexa nodded. I stood to intercept the lab order from Jo before she started.

"Maybe I could talk to her? Like, alone?" Her eyebrows raised as she waited for me to answer.

I knew Alexa could hear us and I didn't want to make a big fuss, so I nodded. Wilson wasn't close to this, maybe she could offer Alexa some words that would help more than my own. It hurt not to be able to do more for her, but I cared about her and that meant putting her before my own feelings.

That didn't mean I didn't wait right outside the door and "overhear" their whole conversation. I was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, catching dirty looks from the others outside. Whatever.

"How are you feeling?" Jo started. "Do you care which arm I use?"

"No," Alexa answered quietly.

"Alright. Just cleaning it off… And a small poke," Jo paused. "You know, I know how you feel."

Alexa didn't say anything.

"Embarrassed. Hurt. Wondering what you did wrong."

"That's where you are wrong. I'm not wondering. I know what I did that set it off."

"Interesting choice of words. Hold this here." I pictured Alexa holding the gauze on her arm while Wilson ripped off some surgical tape.

"What do you mean?"

"What you did that 'set if off'. Kind of like you knew it would happen because it's happened before." My gut wrenched. "But you don't want to say that, because then everybody looks at you with pity and that sucks. And it changes everything," Jo continued.

"I guess. I mean, I haven't ever gotten hurt before." I let out a breath. "But I've seen my mother flip out like that before. Get that mad. She's always drunk. And I've kind of just learned how to avoid it," Alexa finished.

"I've got to bring these to the lab, but I'm going to put a rush on the results, so you can get out of here as soon as possible." I heard Jo snapping off her gloves. "Listen, though. You're strong. And you've got a _crap ton_ of people here who care about you. And… I've been there too. So if you want to talk to me, you can."

"Thanks, Dr. Wilson."

"Jo," she corrected.

The door opened. Jo first looked out to the group who was talking at the nurses' station, still, and then noticed me right next to the door.

Jo nodded at me. "Thank you," I said.

I hesitantly went back into the room. "Any minute now we can go to CT," I lied. Well, it wasn't necessarily a lie but an exaggeration. I hadn't even asked Derek how much longer but we had been here for forty minutes now.

"And if I don't have any contusions this will all have been a waste of everyone's time, though," she answered.

"No. Absolutely not. For one, we want to make sure your cut doesn't start bleeding again. And another, even if there aren't contusions, you still have a concussion and we've been able to observe you awake for a little while now. None of which is a waste of time."

"Okay," she said, defeated.

A few minute later, thank God, Derek came in and informed us it was time for the CT. He took her up with Wilson, but he wouldn't let me come with him. Probably for the better. I met everyone else where they were still fucking around, both nosey and concerned.

"I'm going to take off, unless you need anything else?" Callie asked, finishing her notes on Alexa's electronic chart.

"No. Thank you so much, Callie. We really appreciate it," Mer answered.

Callie squeezed my upper arm sympathetically before she left. Which left Owen and Mer. Owen cleared his throat and Meredith quickly came up with an excuse to go to radiology.

"Are you doing okay?"

I shook my head no and closed my eyes. It seemed like I was just here, waiting for news on Alexa with Owen trying his best to comfort me.

This time it was working better.

He opened up his arms and I pressed my cheek into his shoulder. My eyes were squeezed shut, but it didn't stop the tears. "How could someone do that?" I whispered.

"I don't know. I don't know."

"She's the sweetest kid, and she didn't do anything wrong. She doesn't deserve this. Any of this."

"I know, Amelia."

I let go and wiped my eyes. "Thank you for being here."

"Of course. I love you. And you love Alexa."

We waited in silence until Meredith came back. "Scans are up," she said, waving us on to follow her to radiology.

When we got to the CT, Wilson was getting Alexa out of the machine and back to her room while Derek was looking over the scans.

They were all clear. "Thank God," I said.

"She'll be fine. Especially with us at the house, but I don't think there will be any complications," Derek confirmed.

"What's the plan, Amelia? I know she'll stay with us tonight but what are you going to do about her parents? She can't very well go back home to her mother," Mer asked.

"It's pretty clear what we have to do," Owen said.

"She's not a minor anymore. I doubt anything would happen except they would tell her to move out if she didn't like it. Unless she wants to try for assault charges. But there were no other witnesses, and she doesn't seem willing to go through a trial anyway," Derek chimed in. Always Mr. Right.

"Shepherd, these people have to pay for what they've put her through!" Owen said angrily. Suddenly they all looked towards me.

"I don't know. It's not up to me. It's up to Alexa."

"You can't let a nineteen-year-old make that decision. It's irresponsible," Owen scoffed.

"Yeah, that's the thing, though. She's nineteen. Derek just said it. She's not a minor anymore. But then, she's too young to make these types of decisions for herself. So where does that leave her? I don't want to do that to her. We can talk to her about her options but in the end… it's up to her."

"We're mandated reporters, Amelia."

"She's not a child, Derek," Meredith said.

I sighed. And I found myself wishing Wilson was still here for this conversation. She would know better than any of us what Alexa wanted, I was assuming. As much as it hurt me to admit.

"Nobody do anything. I'll talk to her in her room, okay? We still don't have the exact details about what happened," I pointed out.

"Are you victim-blaming your daughter right now?" Mer asked.

I was stunned. "No, of course not! I guess there's just some small part of me hoping that there's another explanation. Forget it. You're right."

Mer shrugged. "Sorry."

"Let's just get back."

 **A/N: I know this chapter was dark and heavy, but to be fair the category is angst. My heart goes out to all of you who have gone through anything similar. Stay strong everyone. I'll try to update soon-ish.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Hey everyone, hope you're all doing great. Thanks for reading, please review!**

 **For those of you who are caught up to live, I still support Amelia after 13x17 :) I tried to add some sassy Amelia in this chapter because I feel like that's been lacking in the show lately.**

 **P.S. I did include a scene with Alexa's perspective just because I really wanted to write it and couldn't see a way around it. Let me know what you think.**

 _Amelia_

I didn't mention anything about filing a report to Alexa while we were still in the hospital. I could tell she was not ready for that kind of processing. Her head was probably starting to hurt like hell. The effects of epinephrine and norepinephrine are amazing when it comes to pain. Derek wrote her a prescription for acetaminophen but it hadn't kicked in yet.

I helped her set up in the guest room. Owen carried her suitcase in from the car for her and split pretty quickly. It seemed like every time we had to work something out, something with Alexa came up. Of course, none of that was her fault but I wondered if Owen was getting upset about that.

She was lying in bed, propped up by some pillows Mer had pulled out of a closet somewhere. Their overnight sitter was putting the kids back down after the commotion of all of us coming home. Derek was making Alexa a grilled cheese downstairs since she said she hadn't eaten since before her flight.

I was sitting in the chair in the guest room, not sure what to do or say.

"I'm really fine, you know. You're kind of freaking me out."

"Sorry," I chuckled. "You have got us all worried, though. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really right now."

"Yeah, I figured. I used to be that way too. Now no one around here can get me to shut up half the time."

"So… what happened?"

I pondered. "I got sober," I chuckled, and then cleared my throat. "I mean, seriously. It's kind of just better for me to talk about things then bury them. Burying them always manifests down the line with a bottle of vodka."

"If you don't mind me asking, then… how come it took so long for you to talk to Owen?"

"That's a fair question," I conceded. "Honestly, I don't know. I was scared to lose him and scared to face him and scared that something would happen to him. I mean, my father, my best friend Michelle, Ryan, my baby…" I shook my head. "I'm always worried that something catastrophic will happen to those I love. So I guess sometimes it's easier to push them away."

"I guess I know what you mean," she bowed her head.

"What?"

"I don't know. I mean I felt awful when I left for winter break… you just seemed too good to be true. I know I've said it before but to have found out about you after years of feeling like I wasn't good enough for that family… and I got lucky. My sister's parents basically told her to get lost when she found them. I was afraid maybe that would happen to me too. And I know it's completely reasonable for you to not want this anymore, after I showed up out of nowhere, but we've gotten so close and it was going to hurt."

"Alexa," I started. "I'm never going to tell you to get lost. I'm here for long haul now. I'm sorry if I seemed distant… or like I was too distracted, which I was, but it's not because I didn't want you to stay. I just didn't want to be overbearing. I know you have built a life for nineteen years back in Massachusetts and to put my own wants before that would be selfish."

"Twenty," she said.

"What?"

"Twenty years. My birthday was last week."

I smiled. "Why didn't you say anything? Happy birthday, Alexa. We should celebrate."

"Maybe we can just have dinner? Everyone at the house here, Callie, Arizona, Sofia? Maybe… Owen? If that's okay."

"Of course. We're in an okay place, now. I'll ask everyone tomorrow."

Just then Derek knocked on the door. "Hungry?"

"Starving," Alexa replied.

I watched Alexa bite into the sandwich and pretend to enjoy what she was eating. "Don't feel obligated to eat that trash. I can go make you another, you know, one that's not actually burnt to a crisp."

"Oh, please, Amy, the _only_ thing you can make is waffles," Derek joked.

"Okay well Meredith can make her something edible, then," I said.

"My wife needs her beauty sleep."

"Shut up, Derek," we heard Mer call from the bedroom over. She appeared in the doorway. "What do you want? Another grilled cheese? Or has his delusional idea of cooking ruined grilled cheese for you forever?"

Alexa laughed. "A grilled cheese is fine. Thank you, again."

Derek and Meredith filed out of the room, Meredith down to the kitchen and Derek to their bedroom where I imagined he was going to fall asleep before Mer even came back up. I turned to Alexa. "It's getting late. I'm going to go to bed, I have to be in tomorrow morning. But I'll be back before you even wake up, probably."

I moved for the door, but Alexa called me back. "Amelia?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"So… well… can I, is it okay if I stay here for the rest of the break?"

My heart ached. She was showing to be pretty damaged from what happened. "Of course it is." I leaned down to hug her, but I felt her flinch slightly before relaxing into me. Her shoulders were trembling a little. "You have always got a place with me. Whether I'm here or not. I'm not ever going anywhere that you can't come to with me." I kissed her forehead. "Goodnight. If you need anything, you know where my room is. My door's open."

"Goodnight."

The next morning, when I woke up for work, I felt like absolute crap. Still, I had traded on-call shifts too many times to call out now.

When I got to the kitchen, I was expecting silence, but Meredith was up brewing a pot of coffee.

"Is this what it feels like to be a parent?"

"Oh, please," Mer said. "You had one late night and you're worn out? Try raising them from birth."

I chuckled. "Hey, you technically adopted Zola, just saying. And you have a third parent."

Mer laughed as she poured me a mug of coffee. "I don't suppose you're referring to yourself?"

"Come on! Your bedroom is on the other side of the country from the kids compared to my room. I've gotten up for them more than you realize." I sipped the coffee black and immediately regretted it. "Would be better with some Bailey's."

Mer shook her head. "Oh, you're bad," she laughed again. "Just awfully fucked up."

I shrugged. "I think we all knew what we were signing up for."

"False. But you know we appreciate everything you do for the kids."

"Just like I appreciate everything you do for me and my… kid."

Mer raised her eyebrows. "Still feel funny to say?"

I shrugged again. "Kind of. It's more like I just want to let things happen without putting a label on everything. I call her my kid, maybe she feels obligated to… I don't know. Play house. I'm a firm believer in letting someone do things at their own pace. Enough about my crap, though. Why are you awake at such an ungodly hour? Isn't it your day off?"

"Yeah, it is, but I heard your alarm go off and I hadn't fallen asleep yet from last night and Derek was snoring like a maniac so somehow I got a second wind. It's not like there isn't enough around the house to be done today."

"Sorry. About my alarm. But seriously? I am barely staying awake right now. And weren't you the one just lecturing me about taking care of myself and all that?"

"Oh, calm down, I'll take a nap later when the kids go down for theirs."

"Mm," I said, taking the last sip of my coffee. "I'm going to be late. But um, it was kind of Alexa's birthday last week and she wanted to have dinner so I kind of told her it was okay for us to have dinner here with everyone tonight, okay?" I got up from the kitchen island before she had a real chance to answer and put my mug in the sink.

"Uh, yeah, sure, I-"

"Great, thanks, see you later!" I bounded back up the stairs to get ready for work.

My first surgery was a breeze, but I got stuck doing consults in the pit for another hour before I could really talk to anyone. Finally, though, I got a chance with Arizona.

"Hey, what are you all doing tonight? You all as in you, Callie, Sofia. It was Alexa's birthday last week, and…"

"Oh, is Alexa back in Seattle?"

"Right." I forgot that not everyone knew about last night's events. It seemed like a million years away. "Yeah. Long story. She's uh… kind of fragile right now, though, so I don't want to disappoint her. Any way you can do dinner tonight?"

"Sure. Everything okay?"

"Not really," I sighed.

"Well, Amelia, spill!" She patted the couch next to her, indicating for me to sit. I obeyed.

"She came back last night because her mom freaked out when Alexa told her she found me… It was bad. I mean, she threw a _baseball bat_ at her kid."

"Jesus! Is Alexa okay?"

"I don't know. She keeps saying she is but how could she be? I don't know if I should push her to get into therapy or what… She has a mild concussion. And her nose was fractured. But she's alive so that's… something. It could have been a lot worse. And it's already horrible."

Arizona put her arm around my shoulders. "You should push her to get into therapy. You know it, I know it…"

"I'm not her mom. And I am. That's kind of the problem. I'm not _really_ sure what role I'm playing here."

"I see what you mean. Well, I would say just give her a few days to calm down after everything… we'll do dinner tonight and she can just hang out and be loved, which is probably going to be highly therapeutic in itself. And then maybe you can bring up the idea… I don't know."

I nodded. It seemed about as good an answer as I could ever come up with. "Mer wants _me_ to make an appointment with Dr. Wyatt. All the stuff with Owen. But I talked to Owen last night, kind of. It was weird because it was right when Alexa called from the airport. And he got really mad last night when we didn't want to report Alexa's mother right away..." I felt the telltale signs of a bout of tears coming in my throat. I put my head in my hands. "Just thinking about it makes me so upset. The whole thing. I just want to be a normal person who has normal problems, like what bills I accidentally paid late or having no time to keep up with old friends…"

"Oh, sweetie, you'd never have that problem because the only friends any of us have all work at the hospital. You're trapped forever," Arizona giggled.

I smiled sadly. "I guess that's not so awful."

"Right. Well I have a surgery with Alex so I'll see you tonight then."

"Sure. Oh, if you want to invite Alex and Jo. I'm sure Mer was going to anyway."

"Will do. Chin up. Bye," Arizona said as she got up to leave from the lounge.

I was left alone, debating whether I wanted to invite Owen in person, or just text him. I figured it would be less humiliating to text him, in case he turned me down. Despite having talked, nothing was truly settled. I knew it wasn't doing any good for me to be ignoring him but with everything from last night, I had tunnel vision for Alexa and making sure she was going to be okay.

Do you want to come over for dinner tonight at Mer's? For Alexa's bday. Arizona & co. coming, maybe Karev and Wilson. Up to you.

Sure. 

Well that was that. I would see Owen tonight.

 _Alexa_

I forgot where I was for a minute when I woke up. I always slept like a baby at Meredith's house since the guest bed was memory foam, a God send compared to the dorm room beds I was used to. I had even drooled a little on the pillow case. Gross.

I checked my phone which was plugged into the night stand next to me. 11:38 am. Amelia had texted me saying dinner was on for tonight, and that she'd be back around 1 or 2. I got out of bed and got dressed, not really sure what else to do with myself. I was about to head to the bathroom, tooth brush in hand, when I practically barreled into Derek as I opened the door.

"Sorry. I forgot you'd be here."

He laughed. "It's fine. Mer is asleep on the couch downstairs, so just be quiet if you can. And I _was_ supposed to be at work, but Amy sent me back to take you to come pick out a cake tonight. I was just coming to see if you were awake."

I smiled. "Yeah, I woke up a few minutes ago. Before noon is kind of early for me."

"Well I'll whip up a sandwich, so come down when you're ready and we can eat and go. Turkey and cheese okay?"

"Yup."

"What do you like on it?"

"Nothing. Just turkey and cheese."

"Really? Okay. One plain turkey and cheese coming up. But I bet once you look at my sandwich you'll want all the fixings. Legendary."

I rolled my eyes. Amelia was right, her brother was somewhat full of himself but at least this ordeal was comical. "I'm sure I won't. But thank you. I'll be down in a couple of minutes."

When I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I panicked a little before remembering that half of my face was a disgusting shade of purple. Derek had done a really good job of acting like it wasn't all he could think about. But I don't see how that could be possible. I just looked plain _bad._

Other than that, I felt pretty average. I was wearing converse, distressed jeans and a long sleeve baseball tee. It was one of Seattle's nicer days, even though it was January. I was hoping to cover up some of this mess but I hardly ever work makeup. Maybe Amelia would let me borrow some concealer.

I texted her and asked, but she might have been busy because she didn't answer for the few minutes I was waiting. I didn't want to take it without asking, and I didn't want to keep Derek waiting, so I decided, screw it, and put my hair in a braided bun, covering my head with the Diamondbacks baseball cap I've had since I was 13. I hardly ever watched baseball but my dad had always liked this team for some reason. Hell, it was a lot better than being a Yankees fan in Massachusetts.

When I decided I didn't look like 100% crap, I met Derek downstairs in the kitchen. He was holding Zola, who I guess had woken up from her nap, and put his finger to his lips to remind me about Meredith napping. I nodded and sat at the counter, picking up my sandwich and taking a bite. Zola waved at me tiredly and put her head on Derek's shoulder.

He gestured to the remaining half of his sandwich. I looked at the mess before me. It had almost anything and everything on it. I wasn't sure how he could even get his mouth on it for a bite. I shook my head, chuckling.

"More for me," he whispered. We were being quiet but Meredith stirred anyway. A minute later, she sat up.

"Oh come on," Derek said. "We barely made a noise."

Mer smiled lazily. "No, you were fine, I woke up because I forgot to put my phone on silent and Amelia has been blowing it up all morning."

"Sorry," I said. "That's on me. I asked if we could just have dinner-"

"Don't worry about it. She's just getting a little overly excited about the planning. She asked me if I wanted to take you to get a cake."

Derek jumped in. "Hey, I'm on cake duty!"

I was kind of taken aback. My parents _never_ fought about who got to take me anywhere. It was more like, who -had- to and if I deserved the ride in the first place.

"Pleeeease, I've been dying to get out of the house," Meredith said.

"You just woke up! No way. We're already on our way out. Let's go Alexa," Derek made a point of grabbing his keys and put Zola down, kissing her forehead. "Bye Zo."

"Can I come!" Zola asked excitedly, wrapping her arms around Derek's leg.

"Maybe next time. But I bet Mommy will let you help her fold the laundry! Doesn't that sound awesome? Way more exciting than what us grown-ups have to do." Zola frowned, but walked across the threshold to the living room and sat next to Meredith on the couch.

"Bye! No brainwashing, Derek," Meredith called out as we shut the door.

"She just doesn't want me convincing you to choose a double chocolate cake just because that's _my_ favorite. Unless you wanted to, of course. And I would have brought Zola but she would have never left the bakery."

I smiled but didn't really know what else to say. I hadn't spent a lot of time with Derek without Amelia around as a buffer. "Chocolate's okay. I'm more partial to yellow cake with chocolate frosting, though."

Derek opened the passenger door for me. "Yellow it is."

In past birthdays, my cake was never bought from a bakery, but homemade instead. I wasn't sure that I would like this one better but the fact that I was getting anything at all was something to be grateful for.

At the bakery, Derek asked the man working for a sample platter, even though my mind was pretty much made up. "You'll want to try some of these, trust me." We were both leaning on the counter, looking at the various other deserts behind the register. "Alexa?"

"Yeah?" I asked.

"I hope you know, I wasn't trying to be cold with you in the past. But I haven't always had the best relationship with Amelia, and Mark was my best friend so the whole thing was just overwhelming. And I was taking out some other anger on you and it wasn't fair. I know we've moved past it for the most part but I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said, and I meant it. Compared to my parents, Derek was a rock star. And he was just technically my uncle.

Just then, the guy brought out the samples and we sat down at a nearby table with our forks. "Here. Try a bite of this red velvet cheesecake."

"Sure," I conceded, but I had never eaten red velvet before. As a picky eater I wasn't apt to trying new foods. I took a bite and swallowed. "It's alright."

"Just alright?"

But I wasn't paying that much attention as a wave of nausea washed over me. I felt a little dizzy but I was more concerned with trying not to throw up.

"Hey, you alright?" Derek asked.

I nodded. "I think so."

Still, her grabbed the nearby trash can and as soon as it was in my hands I threw up into it. Derek rubbed small circles into my back.

"Sorry," I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand because we didn't have any napkins. I scanned for a restroom.

"You have a concussion. It's to be expected. Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"So, maybe we won't get the red velvet," he joked.

"Maybe not," I agreed, getting up to wash up. When I came back out, Derek was holding a box and checking out.

"I just got the yellow. You like what you like, right? Do you want any writing on it, or?"

"No, it's fine. I like casual."

Derek smiled. "Sure. Between Amelia's need to overcompensate for everything, and Meredith's boredom at home for the day, you know they're going all out at this dinner."

"Great."

"That's $32.50, please."

 _What?_ That seemed like an insane amount of money to spend on a cake, when cake mix cost a few bucks at the grocery store.

"Derek, you don't have to-"

"Shh. I want to. It's your birthday! I know things have kind of sucked lately but celebrating will be good. So let my wife go all out and let me buy a nice cake for you. It's the least we can do."

"For what? I haven't done anything except suck up your resources and time."

Derek put a hand on my shoulder. "You make Amelia really, really happy. And you make us happy too. Besides, we have to have _some_ leverage if we're ever going to hit you up for free babysitting."

I smiled. "Anytime."


	10. Chapter 10 (with a fixed typo)

**A/N: Welcome back. This is all Amelia's perspective again. It's my birthday next weekend so this might be it for a couple of weeks, sorry about that! Enjoy, review please!**

 **P.S. When I talk about what happened to Alexa, it might seem like some of the thoughts around it are quip and sarcastic, as if I'm not taking it seriously. That's not my intention at all. I am trying to do the DV storyline justice since Lord knows the show has done little to no development with Jo's SL since last season.**

When I got back to the house, Derek and Alexa were still at the bakery so Mer and I had some time to set up without Mr. Perfect giving us his two cents about the decorations or dinner plans. The dining room in the house was huge so we had more than enough space for everyone.

I had stopped at the party store on the way back from the hospital and picked up some stuff. Mer started cracking up as I was taking it out of the bag, though.

"What?" I asked. It was just the basics.

"She's not turning seven, Amelia. She doesn't need matching plates and cups."

I stared at the blue napkins in my hand. "Oh my God, you're right." We both started laughing. "What am I going to do with all this?"

"Relax, save it for Zola's next birthday. For tonight we can just use the regular plates. You know. Like adults."

"Alright, alright. I haven't done any of this before!" I defended.

"What, you've never turned twenty?"

"Mmm, I don't remember much about that night but I was probably doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing. So I'm trying not to base it off me. What'd you do when you turned twenty?" I asked.

"I was still in Europe so probably sleeping with a number of inappropriate men. Hey, Alex texted me. Did you invite him and Wilson?"

"I figured you wouldn't mind, I mean, I thought you would have ended up inviting him anyway."

"No, I don't mind, I just saw the death glare you gave Wilson last night at the hospital so I didn't think you'd be too excited to see her," Mer explained.

"I did _not_ give her a death glare."

"Mhmm." We were spreading out a table cloth across the long table. I wasn't even sure where people got table cloths this long. Whenever I lived on my own, the place looked like crap because I couldn't be bothered by things like this.

"I didn't!" I repeated. "I was just not in a pleasant state of mind last night. That's all. I hope Wilson didn't take it personally, then.

Mer chuckled. "She probably thinks you hate her by extension because you're friends with me. Resident drama."

"And you call me fucked up. You have a resident who's basically afraid of you."

"It's not my fault they all have their heads up their asses!"

Just then, Derek and Alexa got back. Meredith and I walked into the kitchen.

"Give me that, I bet there's already finger tracks in the frosting," Mer said as she took the box with the cake in it from Derek and opened the fridge.

"No way. She picked a yellow cake. I could never stop so low," Derek smirked.

Alexa laughed and shrugged. "Double chocolate is too much chocolate. And the red velvet… too rich."

"Yeah?" Derek challenged.

"I wasn't sick because of the cake," Alexa said.

"Wait, you were sick?" I jumped in. "When? Are you okay?"

"At the bakery. I'm fine. I was just a little dizzy, that's all."

I looked to Derek for some answers. He put his hands up defensively. "She has a concussion, Amy, there's nothing to report."

Mer looked at me with wide eyes. I was probably being crazy. I sighed. "Alright. As long as you're okay. Let us know if you're feeling sick again." I hugged her around her shoulders.

"I will, I swear, but there's not much you can do anyway," she pointed out.

"Alexa, _come on_ we're folding laundry!" Zola came running into the dining room from the living room holding a towel.

"You don't have to fold, Alexa. Zola just has fun doing it," Mer said.

"Practice for when I'm going to be a mommy one day!" Zola exclaimed.

"Yeah, let's hope that's not too soon, huh?" Derek picked up Zola.

The baby monitor rang out and that signaled the end of nap time. Meredith went upstairs and Derek took Zola into the playroom, leaving Alexa and I in the kitchen. I didn't really want to get into the deep stuff with her right now but it seemed as good a time as any.

"So your therapist back home, does… has going there helped, you think?" I asked.

Alexa smiled at me sadly. "What are you doing?"

"Okay, I'm sorry, I know it's uncomfortable, but we have to talk a little bit about what happened. I just want what's best for you." I was leaning on the counter and she was sitting in one of the stools across from me. "I'm just asking, because I'm thinking it'd be good for you to talk to someone about it."

She nodded. "I don't know. I guess."

"I don't want to force you to or anything."

"Right."

I didn't think she was being difficult on purpose but there was only so much leeway I could give. "So, just think about it. I want to do what you want to do. Alright? And if you need anything, you know…"

"Is Jo coming tonight?" I was a little taken aback.

"Wilson?" I asked.

"Yeah."

I wondered if this had anything to do with last night. "Uh, yeah, she and Alex were invited."

"Okay."

I laughed. Alexa looked at my quizzically. "Sorry. I just don't want things to be weird now. I'm telling ya, Alexa, we're here for you."

She sighed. "I know. It just sucks to think about. I know it's not your fault and I probably should intervene before I become a complete basket case, but it's just a lot easier to ignore it."

"Learn from my mistakes. Don't just push it down."

"I'll try not to."

"Alright. Anyway, what do you want for dinner? I stopped on the way back for some groceries. We could make some lasagna. Or mac and cheese. Oh! And a salad," I said as I started pulling out the food to put it away.

"Shouldn't we ask Meredith what she wants to make us for dinner? We're basically useless. What with the never-seen-a-real-meal-cooked-before and the complete lack of experience on your end."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I suppose so."

* * *

Everyone came over around seven. Owen didn't show up with everyone else, though. To be fair, I hadn't given him a time.

Derek and Meredith were in the kitchen getting everything ready to bring out. I was sitting across from Alexa in the middle of the table. Callie was handling all the kids on one side of me, and Wilson was on the other side.

Mer had decided a lasagna would be a crowd pleaser, so we watched helplessly as she made dinner. Zola was having the time of her life with Sofia and Alexa seemed pretty happy. Outwardly, that was. Over the whole day it'd been pretty hard to gauge how she was really doing.

Finally, after a few minutes of settling in, the food was served and we were all in the warm lull of dinner conversation.

Wilson was telling some story about a hard case she was on and Meredith caught my eye. We were both trying not to crack up at the thought of Wilson complaining. I didn't think Jo was a baby or anything like that, it was just funny because I was half expecting Mer to go off on her as soon as she was done talking.

Arizona was mouthing to me across the table, "Where's Owen?" Alexa, who was directly next to her, caught on to what she was trying to say and nodded in agreement.

I shrugged in response and checked my phone for the millionth time, begging for an update. This couldn't be the way this was ending.

Okay, dramatic.

But I didn't get any updates throughout the entire dinner, so his actions kind of spoke for themselves. Maybe he was drunk somewhere. Maybe he was entirely sober and just didn't want to deal with me.

Maybe I didn't care anymore.

At some point in the night, Alexa stopped making eye contact with anyone and got quieter. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't have noticed on a regular day because it was so subtle, but I had been paying extra attention since finding out she threw up earlier.

"Hey," I softly kicked her leg under the table. "You okay?"

She nodded and gave me a fake smile. I couldn't tell what was bothering her. Certainly it wasn't the conversation topic, because we weren't even talking about surgery, just about the parking situation at the hospital and how we all hated it.

Alexa excused herself, clutching her abdomen. I could tell by how pale her face was that she was going to be sick again. I watched her walk to the bathroom, but Derek looked at me pointedly as if I should be following her there. I was torn about that. I was sure she just wanted to be sick in peace, but I wasn't entirely sure that this was the only thing on her mind.

I stood slowly, still unsure, but we all heard her retch loudly so I walked down the hall and knocked on the door. "You don't have to let me in, I just wanted to check to see if you needed anything. Tell me to go screw if I'm bothering you."

The door swung open, and Alexa was sitting against the tub, still looking pale and upset. "I wouldn't tell you to go screw. I just didn't want to throw up in front of _everyone_."

I sat down on the floor across from her. "We see it all the time. It's really not a big deal to anyone out there, I promise."

She didn't answer but she swallowed hard and I could tell she was going to be sick again. Her hands clutched the side of the toilet bowl so tightly her knuckles were white. She heaved for a minute before vomiting. I ran the tap and put a facecloth underneath, handing it to her once she was done. "How long is this going to last?"

"Probably another day or two. It'll be over soon."

"No, I mean the you and Owen trouble. He said he was coming, right?"

I decided to humor since she was making a point of changing the subject. "I didn't tell him what time. It's only like eight now. Maybe he just thought we were having a late dinner." Alexa raised her eyebrows at me. Yeah, I was in denial a little bit. "I'm sorry he didn't show up on time, though. It had nothing to do with you."

Alexa looked away. "We're kind of messed up, huh?"

"Well established, at this point, I think."

"No, I'm serious. Well, half. Like, I'm in here puking my brains out because I was hit on the head with a freaking baseball bat. Kind of scary."

I sighed. "Look, are you okay? Seriously. I know you keep assuring us that you are on the surface and I didn't want to bother you too much about it earlier because it's your birthday celebration and all, but you seemed a little down after we got into dinner and just in general. Which, you have every right to be but I wish you would talk to one of us instead of going through whatever you're going through alone."

She was silent for a minute. "It's just kind of shameful, you know? Logically I know it wasn't really my fault but sitting at the table I felt like everyone was looking at this exposed part of me and judging me for it."

"No one's judging you," I asserted.

"I know. It just feels that way."

I felt bad for pushing her to open up and not really knowing what to say to her. I was still at a loss for words when she started crying. My heart felt like it dropped twenty feet into the basement.

"Come here," I said, putting my arms around her shoulders and letting her lean into me. "It's okay."

"I just don't know what I did to deserve any of this. I've always tried my hardest to make her happy because I'm forever indebted to them for taking me in. I don't know what I did. I don't know what I did." She kept repeating it over and over in between sobs.

God, nothing like an abusive parent's tantrum to really screw you up.

"You didn't do anything," I consoled. "And you're here now okay? None of us will ever hurt you. You've got Meredith and Derek, and you've got me, and you're sure as hell got everyone else out there too. You're safe here, you always will be. You did nothing wrong Alexa. You have to get that."

 _You have to get that_. I thought back to my time in rehab, where Hailey was yelling at me about how I didn't kill Ryan and that it wasn't my fault. I didn't want to believe her then, so I couldn't see how Alexa would want to listen to me now. But I had to try.

There was a knock on the door. Arizona's voice came through softly. "Just wanted to let you know that Owen is here. Let me know if you need anything." I heard her footsteps down the hall back into the dining room.

Alexa looked at me. "You can go talk to him. I just want to clean up for a second and I'll be back out."

"Are you sure? You don't have to come back out if you don't want to. We can tell everyone that you're not feeling well, and call it a night."

"And miss the cake? I feel like I could eat the entire thing myself now that I've poured the entire contents of my stomach into the toilet."

I stood and extended my hand to help her up. I hugged properly now that we were standing up. "Alright. If it becomes too much, though, text me or something and I'll kick everyone out without making a big deal about it."

Alexa smiled and turned to the mirror, running the tap. I left her at that, slowly making my way down the hall. I saw Owen before he saw me but when he saw me…

Man, that smile.

I felt warm all over.

"Hi, hun. Sorry I'm late. You didn't…?" We hugged awkwardly.

"It's okay. My fault really. I should have let you know what time. I, uh, forgot."

Arizona's face looked like the "yikes" emoji and it would have been that moment in a sitcom where one character teeters on their tippy toes while they awkwardly wait for someone to say something.

"Should I-"

"I'm going to-"

We interrupted each other. "I'm going to fix Alexa another plate. She'll be out in a minute. She wasn't feeling great."

"Ah, okay. I'll make my way to the dining room then?"

I nodded. Arizona followed me into the kitchen, where Meredith was wrapping up the salad to be stored in the fridge.

"Jeez," Arizona commented. "I mean, 'I'll make my way to the dining room'?" She imitated Owen. "That's all he has to say to you?"

Mer's head practically whipped around to catch the me-and-Owen gossip. "Hunt made it?"

"Yup, and it's _fine_ , so let's not do the thing tonight where everyone obsesses over every little thing we say to each other, okay? Sounds good." I started cutting a piece of lasagna for Alexa.

I looked up and saw Arizona mouth "it's bad" to Mer. I looked between them and rolled my eyes.

"How's Alexa, are we going on with this thing?" Meredith asked.

"Yeah, she's fine, she just wants to get some food in her stomach and then we can go onto the cake. Let's uh, not pull out any cameras though. I don't think she'll be too happy to have her picture taken tonight."

"Of course," Arizona said.

We all walked back towards the dining room as Alexa was coming out of the bathroom. She said hi to Owen, who slipped her a twenty and said something with a chuckle. Probably apologizing that his gift wasn't in a card.

I handed her the plate and started helping Mer clear everyone else's. She wolfed down the lasagna and followed us to the kitchen. "Cake?" she asked.

"Coming right up. Go sit down, we have to light the candles," Mer said.

"Oh God, there's candles?"

"And singing," I smirked.

She jokingly sulked back into the dining room. Mer lifted the cake and I dimmed the lights in the room. We all sung; Alexa looked embarrassed but I could tell she was feeling better and I was glad the night could end on a happy note.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Hey everyone, I didn't think I would have this chapter up so soon but here it is! I am procrastinating studying for my exams lol. It's short, though.**

 **Warning: super angst. You may not like where I'm taking this but…**

Mer and I were still doing dishes long after everyone had left. Derek said he was going to help but he got tied up putting the kids to sleep.

"So, you guys were totally weird," Mer started.

"Not this again," I begged.

"Amelia, let me be blunt here. I'm sick of the same old story with you two. You both have good intentions, but you need to get it together long enough to have a conversation with him! A real one. Not that nicety crap from before."

I rolled my eyes. "We were on our way last night, but that's when Alexa called. It's fine. We'll be fine."

"Are you still engaged?"

"Uh…"

"You don't know?"

"I do. The answer is no," I said solemnly. Mer stopped her scrubbing and looked me in the eye. She gave me comforting smile and turned back to the task at hand.

"So are you broken up?"

"Not really. I don't know. We haven't set any boundaries-"

"Well that's a problem," Mer cut me off.

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Just, figure it out with him. Soon."

"Huh," I mumbled.

"What?" Mer shut off the tap and shook the water off of her hands. I didn't answer until she was facing me.

"You know something?" I asked. My breath was catching but I was determined to stand my ground right now.

"No! What are you talking about?" she asserted.

"Meredith. Meredith, please just tell me. I am asking you as your _sister_ to tell me what you know," I pleaded.

She sighed and shrugged. "Look. Alex was telling me he's been seeing Hunt around with another woman-"

I let out a huff and put my hands to my temples.

"We don't know in what context he's seeing this woman! She could just be a patient who asked to talk about treatment over coffee." She was trying to reason with me, probably because my reaction was freaking her out. Everyone expected the breakdowns and the overtly being upset and running away. But I was calm. Externally.

"He's a trauma surgeon. Not a lot of repeat patients there," I pointed out.

"Okay, so maybe she's a friend or something? We don't need to jump to the worst possible conclusion here."

"Oh, what did you think was going to happen, Mer?" I could feel my blood boiling but no one was going to have the satisfaction of seeing me upset.

"Well, I wasn't going to be the one to tell you, I was going to let him tell you. I was just hoping it would be sooner rather than later."

"What is going on?" Derek came bounding down the stairs. "We can hear you both all the way upstairs."

Mer sighed and grabbed my forearms, looking me in the eye. "Look. I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted to hear. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you but I didn't want to get involved, and-"

I shook her off of me. "Save it. You don't care about me. You're just protecting him for Cristina."

That seemed to strike her. "How can you think that? After everything?"

I shook my head. And slammed my fist into the counter. "God."

"Amy-" Derek started, but shut up as soon as I looked at him. I could feel the heat in my face and my hands were clenched into tight fists.

I let out a deep breath. "What's Alexa doing?" I asked Derek.

"She was upstairs in the guest room. Just watching TV I think. Might have been asleep. Amy, slow down and listen for a second-"

"Tell her I'll be back soon." I grabbed my purse from where it was hanging and let the front door slam behind me. I heard the door open after me but whoever was looking decided not to come after me. I was practically running to the trailer.

I could feel it somewhere deep down that if I barged in there demanding answers, it would be a mistake. It would set us back. That didn't slow me down at all. What the hell was he doing with someone else? Multiple times? Enough that Karev had expressed concern to Meredith?

The lights were off in the trailer when I got there but I knocked anyway. When I didn't hear anything, I knocked again. I knocked repeatedly I finally heard him inside. The lights flicked on from the inside and a second later he was standing in the open doorway.

He stepped out and shut the door behind him.

Weird, considering it was freezing out. You'd think he'd invite me in.

My eyebrows were raised, jaw clenched. "Is she in there?"

"What? Who?"

"Don't do this. Don't lie to me. Not after we just fixed things yesterday."

"You really think that was fixing things, Amelia?"

"Just answered the question." Truth be told, I probably should have turned around right then. I didn't want to know either way. But a deeper, bigger part of me was telling me to stay, stay and get the truth, even if it ruins you.

Owen sighed. I took it as confirmation. "You didn't talk to me for five weeks, Amelia. I thought things were over between us. Of course I didn't want them to be-"

"Oh, right, of course, so the way you figured you'd fix this, fix us, was by flaunting some skank around at the hospital right under my nose. God, I'm so stupid. You know, I had Mer in there telling me that she was probably just one of your patients? Or a friend? I should have known."

"What do you mean, you should have known?"

I stopped where I was pacing. "We both know what I mean."

Owen crossed his arms, then put one hand on his face. "Amelia, I love _you_. But you can't just ignore a relationship! I don't want to be with her. I haven't been sleeping with her. We were just spending time together. I was going to end it tonight."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Yes!"

"Why?" I spat.

"Because I believed you when you said you were going to tell me about everything that night."

"Oh, did you Owen? Yeah, that's not quite how I recall it happening. But continue on with your _delusional_ self-image, Saint Owen."

"Don't be like this because you're hurt. You're lashing out, which I get, but…" he didn't finish his thought.

"But what?"

"But it's not doing any good."

I sighed. I tried so hard to keep my voice level. "And you think that anything you have been saying is?" I didn't let him answer. "Whatever. This, whatever _this_ is, is done. We are _done_ , Owen."

"Amelia, please, just stay and we can work this out."

I spun and my heel. "I _wanted_ to work this out. I was scared and silent. And everything with Alexa happened. But you… you were unfaithful! And now you're here, asking me to stay? Like I owe you anything?" I chuckled. "I don't think so. I'll see ya, unfortunately. Go tell your girlfriend the crazy quasi-fiancée is finally out of the picture and enjoy yourself."

He was speechless as I walked off, but I didn't turn back towards the house. I made the whole long walk down the driveway to the road, and kept walking.

* * *

Mer was calling me after an hour. Probably thought I was drunk already, sitting numbly in a bar by myself. I contemplated it but I was too mad to even enjoy a drink right now. And that's the thing about slips. It's a constant battle of if it's worth it. And it wouldn't be worth it to waste a slip at a time like this when I would just be drinking to resort to my awful coping mechanisms.

No. If I relapsed, I was going to go all in.

But I didn't want to relapse. Not tonight. Not again.

So I just walked. And walked and walked. I wanted to call Meredith back and apologize. I wanted to get back to Alexa. I even wanted to see Derek. But the way I acted was shameful and I couldn't face any of them right now.

But then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe that's why everything in my life fell apart, one thing after the next. I was never around long enough to see it through. I never faced what I had too.

I was a pathetic excuse for a human.

It wasn't an all time low, but a low.

Finally after who knows how long, I sucked up my pride and dialed Mer.

She answered immediately. "Kind of like déjà vu," she commented. I heard the beep as she unlocked her car. Honestly, thank God for Meredith.

"No," I urged. "I'm not outside the bar. I'm not even close. I just wanted to get out. I'm okay now."

"Owen called, said you just left…"

I sighed. "Yeah. If you really must know, I was right to jump to the worst conclusion possible."

"I'm really sorry, Amelia."

"It's fine," I said. "We're done."

"It's not fine."

"I'm sorry I freaked out at you. And thank you for coming to pick me up. Again. Sorry I'm a crap sister."

"You're not. I should have been totally honest. Like I said, I just didn't want to upset you even more."

We hung up and I waited for her to pull up. Thank God for iPhone locations. It would have been really embarrassing to have to explain to Mer the random streets that I walked on.

When she pulled up, I hopped into the passenger and she quickly pulled off. But she didn't go into the direction of the house.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We're stopping at the store. We need some ice cream."

"What? We just ate birthday cake."

"So what? Food therapy. And I need to catch up on DVR," Mer explained. "I spent the whole day doing housework and preparing for that party. Derek's going to kill me if his recordings get overwritten because I haven't deleted anything yet."

"I think I'm just going to hit the hay when we get back. It's been… yeah. Well. You know."

"You on tomorrow?"

"Not 'til noon."

"Then you have no excuse. And Alexa isn't doing anything. Ladies night in. It's settled. Come on. You're really going to cut your daughter's birthday celebration short?"

I chuckled. "Oh my God. Apparently not."

When we got back to the house, Derek was in the kitchen on his laptop. I didn't really feel like talking to him but I threw my arms around his shoulders. He smiled at me and went back to his work.

"Alright, come on, I have a few episodes of Scandal left and most of this season of How to Get Away with Murder…" Mer called from the living room, pulling out the cartons of rocky road we bought.

"Yeah, yeah we'll be right down," I said, starting up the stairs.

I knocked lightly on the guest bedroom door. I could see the flickering TV glow illuminating the floor next to the door jamb.

"Yeah?" Alexa answered.

I walked in and sighed, collapsing onto the bed next to her. "Sorry I left without telling you. I found out Owen was cheating on me. Except he doesn't consider it cheating. I…" I let out a breath. I wanted to let it go for now. "I was really mad and I didn't want you to see me like that. You've changed me, Alexa, but there's still some parts of me that don't know how to cope with stress or change or adversity. I'm trying."

Alexa just shrugged. "It's okay. I know." She turned back to the TV.

"Have you given any thought to what I said earlier?"

"Kinda."

"And?"

"I don't know."

I tapped her on her shoulder to get her to look at me again. "Tell ya what. I could use some counseling too. If you go, I'll go. We'll do it together. Solidarity or whatever. It can't hurt, right?"

Alexa laughed. "Probably won't ever hear a proposal like that again, but okay. You're right."

"I'm what?"

She rolled her eyes. " _Right_." I smiled.

"Come on, Mer wants us to hang out downstairs. She's a little worried about me, with the news about Owen and everything. I'm a little worried about me too," I admitted.

"I'm so comfortable here, though!" Alexa groaned.

"Pleeeeease, she won't let me off the hook so you have to come too," I said, laughing and pulling her arm a little bit with me as I stood.

"Ugh, fine. But I'm probably gonna fall asleep on the couch." She flipped her TV off and we quietly moved downstairs with pillows and blankets, ready to settle into "ladies night in" with Mer, and I was thankful to be spending time with the two people I was closest to at the moment.

That didn't stop me from thinking about Owen the entire night, but that would be tomorrow's problem.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hello all, sorry it's been a while (though by now I'm sure you're used to it from me). Things got really crazy – my roommate was in the ICU for a while so I haven't been writing or doing much of anything – everything is okay now though, alas I am back.**

 **WARNING: Lots of bad language.**

 **This is going to get a little darker for a while, I can't help it it's my favorite kind of fic, so here's your warning.**

 _Amelia_

My cheeks were instantly hot the first time I saw Owen that next afternoon. We weren't close, not really. He was down the hall. But I was in front of him and he saw me, which sent a chill down my spine. Of course, he had to stop to put his chart away right where I was standing.

"Dr. Shepherd," he nodded curtly.

I rolled my eyes. "Yup."

He sighed. I was about to walk away but he grabbed my arm. "Amelia,"

I shook him off. "Don't touch me. Don't even look at me."

"You really think that's practical?" he called after me as I stormed down the hall. Maybe I wasn't being practical, but I didn't feel like I owed him anything after he betrayed me in one of the worst ways possible. I was still so mad; as much as I loved spending time with Meredith and Alexa, it did nothing to solve my problems.

I guess maybe admitting that much was a step in the right direction. Ignorance was usually my solution.

I was walking so fast that when I barreled into the attendings lounge I slammed the door against the wall. Oops. Why wasn't there one of those things that stick out of the wall to stop the door from scraping the wall?

"Woah," Arizona said. She and Callie were on the couch, legs entwined, going over some notes and picking at a bowl of grapes.

"Shep, what's going on?" Callie asked.

I put my hands up to my eyes. "I can't be here anymore. It's Owen. H-h-he…" I couldn't get my words out. "He's been cheating on me."

"Wait, what?" Callie stood. "You mean Taylor?"

I practically heaved. "I guess so. I didn't ask her name. I probably would have killed her if I saw her face."

"We're too pretty for prison, remember?" Arizona joked.

I sighed and looked her in the eye. "Might be worth it."

"Well you can ask Derek, he's spent some time there himself," came Meredith's voice as she entered the lounge. "What's wrong?"

"The usual," I rolled my eyes. Believe me, the melodrama of it all was not lost on me.

"That son of a bitch," Callie said. "He told me Taylor was a consulting surgeon from Seattle Pres. It seemed weird to me but he said they were planning on moving a patient from there to here for a procedure."

I could see Mer in the corner of my eye moving her finger across her throat as a sign for Callie to stop talking. Hey, at least Callie was being truthful. I have always appreciated honesty in its rawest form. "Well, it turns out she's more than a colleague." I collapsed onto the couch seat Callie had vacated. Arizona moved to put her arm around my shoulders. "We were engaged…" My words hung in the air for a while. Nobody knew what to say to me, and at this point I understood. It seemed like the past few months have been everyone trying to comfort me over this, that and the other, and I was getting tired of it so by now they all must have been basically done.

"Is it too soon to say you dodged a bullet, then?" Mer broke the silence.

I glared at her. "Yes."

She chuckled and I couldn't help but smile back. I knew she wasn't saying it to be unsupportive or talk badly about Owen or my choices in men. In all honestly, she might have been right.

But, given everything, maybe a cheater is who I deserved.

I stood. "Thank you, guys, but I have a surgery to get to and we all have stuff to do. We can sit and mope another time. Or not at all would also be good."

"I thought you were just on call?" Mer asked. It was hard to keep what I was doing from her, considering we lived together and worked together.

"Uh, nope," I covered. "A case came in and anyway, April wanted to take my shift tonight. She's traded with me so much she screwed up her sleep schedule, she said."

I got out of the lounge as quickly as I came in. Yes, of course I appreciated my friends but them wanting to coddle me all the time about Owen and everything was starting to get old. I just wanted someone to let me be mad.

Maybe that someone is Dr. Wyatt. I was going to my first appointment with her; I had scheduled it this morning.

* * *

"Hello, Dr. Shepherd, please sit down," Dr. Wyatt gestured to a couch across from her. I was perched on the edge stiffly. I was always uncomfortable with therapists, even the ones I had to see as a kid after my dad died. Even more so now that I have a fairly complex understanding of the brain.

"Thanks," I nodded.

"I have to be honest with you from the get-go," Dr. Wyatt started.

Brownie points already. "Yeah?"

"The reason I was open for you this morning was because Meredith had called me early last week and tried to schedule an appointment with me, for you. It's highly unconventional… not to mention confidentiality and all of that… but she insisted she would be able to convince you to schedule yourself an appointment before today and that you wouldn't have to know I kept it open for you. But part of the process is building trust with you, so there it is."

I rolled my eyes, crossed my arms, and sat back into the couch. "That sounds like Mer."

"Does that bother you? Make you mad?" She started taking notes on a white notepad across from me.

"No. I know she's just looking out for me. Sometimes I wish she wouldn't meddle so much, but I probably wouldn't be here without her."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Come on, Wyatt. You've read the chart," I spat.

"I have, but I want to hear it from you. This is all someone else's perspective. I want to hear yours."

"Do you think that changes what happened?"

"Do you always deflect questions you don't want to answer?" she leaned forward.

"Yes," I admitted. "Usually."

"Well, I'm not up for that crap, so why don't you just tell me."

I sighed. "I like to mess my life up and then feel sorry for myself with illegal substances. Happy?"

"Are you? Happy?"

I pondered. "Overall? Yeah. Right now, probably not."

"But you don't know?"

"I do. I'm not."

"How come?"

"Let's see… my boyfriend proposed to me and then compared me to his ex-wife when I didn't want to tell the whole world… I tried to tell him there are things he doesn't know about me, things that might be deal breakers, and he heard it all from my asshole brother, we fought… my daughter who I gave up at birth ended up in Seattle and we connected, only to have her go back to her old family for winter break until her adoptive mother threw a baseball bat at her and broke her nose, gave her a concussion and scar her for life… Oh! And then there's the Owen cheating on me thing… I'm sure that's not all of course, but it's a start."

Dr. Wyatt seemed totally unfazed. I wondered if Meredith had already filled her in or if it was just part of the job. "Quite a lot then," she joked.

I chuckled. "Yup."

 _Alexa_

It was kind of weird to be in an empty house, especially one that wasn't my own. I wasn't totally used to where everything was yet, and I had messed the TV up trying to find the right input more than a few times now.

Still, it was peaceful. I loved Meredith's kids but they were a handful, and loud. It was nice to sleep in, especially now that I had a concussion and wanted to sleep more than ever. Peaceful quickly turned into boring, though.

I was mindlessly clicking through the channels, somewhat wishing I was back in school, and somewhat wishing I had made better friends in Seattle last semester so that I could actually do something with my life, when my phone started buzzing on the table.

 _Oh boy,_ I thought. _A caller_.

Except the name on the screen made my heart stop in my chest. _Mom_.

"Hello?" I answered quietly.

"Alexa July Lane. You listen to me. If you do not come home immediately, and I mean _immediately_ , you can kiss your bank account good bye. And your school loans. And your sister for that matter."

" _What?!"_ I spat. "That money is mine, and I worked for every penny myself. As for school loans, Dad cosigned on those, not you, so there's nothing you can do about that. And what do you mean by my sister?"

"Oh, honey, that bank account of yours is directly connected to mine. I handed you everything you needed to hold down a job, and without me there would be no money, so it's mine. And your father is in agreement with me. If you don't apologize and come home, we are cutting you off. And that includes your sister, you will not be allowed to speak to her anymore."

"Apologize for what?"

"For going behind our backs and betraying us. Among everything else you've done to make my life miserable."

I felt my shoulders raise. "I don't have anything to apologize for. You're the one th-that physically assaulted me! I didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh, you stupid little piece of shit. It's a good thing you've got _some_ looks, though nothing remarkable, but you certainly don't have brain. That's for sure. You think you've done nothing wrong? Are you really that much of an arrogant little bitch that you can't find a single fault in yourself? Well then, let me break it down for you. You do realize that people just tolerate you right? Anyone who you thought loved you… well you were wrong, and so were they for daring to ever get that close to you. You're an imbecilic waste of space who needs to do the world a favor by killing yourself already before you use up any more of our oxygen."

My hands shook around the phone. Who was this monster saying these things to me? Certainly not a "mother" figure. I passively registered a thunk as my phone hit the ground.

Long after I dropped the phone, her words were still spinning around my head. Haunting me. Threatening me. Daring me to do something about it.

I could barely breathe as I dialed Amelia, but her phone went right to voicemail. I tried Meredith and Derek too, but nobody answered. I felt the walls closing in on me.

I shakily scrolled through my contacts until I reached Jo, who had given me her number before. She picked up on the first ring. "Hello?" she asked, confused.

"It's Alexa…"

"Oh, hi! I forgot to save your number. What's up? Where's Dr. Shepherd?"

"She… I can't… No one is…" I was swallowing big, ugly sobs but I knew they would come loose eventually. "Can you… I don't want to be alone right now."

"Alexa? Are you okay?"

"No," I broke.

"Hey, hey, hey, listen, I'm going to come right over. You're at home, right? I'm at the hospital, but it'll only take me a few minutes to get there, okay?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Alright, hang in there."

"Thanks," I managed.

"Of course. See you soon."

 _Amelia_

I was relieved to be out of Dr. Wyatt's office when I finally pulled into the driveway. I had worked a short day but the appointment took a lot out of me. Dr. Wyatt wasn't like any other therapist I'd had before, for one I actually liked her. But she wasn't trying to talk me into feeling better or coping with things in a better way, which always pissed me off to no end. Instead she was basically just a sounding board for everything I had been feeling. I was angrily ranting about Owen's latest actions, saying things I didn't even know I thought until they came out of my mouth. It was definitely beneficial, but I was done with introspection for the night.

When I opened the door, I heard Alexa's voice in the living room. "Hey," I said. "I want to talk to you about a couple of things…" I trailed off as I put my stuff down by the door and stepped in.

Alexa was on the couch, crying, sitting across from none other than Jo Wilson.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, no one else was home, and I just didn't want to be alone…" Alexa half explained.

Wilson looked at me. "I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, I can go-"

"No, don't be sorry. It's fine, Wilson. Jo. Please stay." I sat down next to Alexa on the couch. Jo looked to me and shrugged. "What's up?"

Alexa began crying harder. "My mom called. Oh my god, she was so mad, I just… I can't do it anymore. She's so awful, why did I ever tell her…"

"What'd she say?" I asked, but it was clear Alexa wasn't going to be able to tell me. I looked to Jo.

"She told Alexa that they were cutting her off, both of them, and that she wouldn't be able to see her sister anymore unless she came home and apologized. Alexa said she didn't have anything to apologize for, but then her mom starting calling her names… awful, awful stuff. I…" Jo shrugged again like she didn't dare repeat the names. "She called me right after, she said no one was home but she didn't want to be here alone so I came right over."

My heart rate increased and my blood started boiling. "Alexa, we have to do something about her…"

"Like, sue?" she asked between sobs.

"Yeah. I mean, maybe I could get custody of you, and that way you could be under my insurance and stuff like that… and you wouldn't need either of them, and I'd be able to pay your school bills and do your financial aid…"

"What about my sister?"

"Well, she'll be 18 soon, right? They can't stop her from seeing you once she's 18."

That answer didn't seem to comfort her. And why would it? She was basically going to have to decide between the sister she's known her whole life and the family she has out here, at least for a while until her sister turned 18.

Alexa was breathing normally again, but tears were still running down her face. Seeing her so upset mad me sad, but I was also so mad at her mother that I couldn't seem to think. I was trying to focus on what was important but I was blinded by the pure evil her mother was.

Well, if her mother was going to play the part of the villain, I guess that left me to be the superhero.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Alas, more darkness. It's finals week, what do you expect from me?**

 _Amelia_

I am sitting in nice clothes. Business casual clothes, or at least what Mer deemed so. Alexa is next to me breathing shakily. We are holding hands because hers won't stop shaking.

"Dr. Shepherd, allow me to be frank. You have a case – what with the assault and the records of texts and voicemails the adoptive mother has been sending. However, she has a case too. You originally gave Alexa up and haven't had contact with her until this year. Now, Alexa, you're not a minor anymore so the court will likely take your opinion with more conviction. It also helps that Alexa has been staying with you. But it seems like this woman is really going to make you fight for it. So it becomes a question of worth. Is it worth it to you to strain your emotional and financial resources? Not to mention the time commitment, all for some paperwork?" the legal aide said. Mer had recommended Janet as a social worker and her legal aide agreed to consult with us before we officially lawyered up.

"It's more than paperwork," I said. "It's principle. How is our case not better? Jesus," I turned to Alexa. "I'll do whatever you want to do. You want to fight? We'll fight. You want to call it? We'll do that too."

"I have to warn you, Alexa, you'll have to testify against your mother, and your relationships with your sister and father may be called into question as well. It is an emotionally harrowing time," Janet explained.

Alexa nods silently. Mer is standing outside, but I wished she was in here now. She would know what to say. I just… don't.

"I can't go back. I can't go back there anymore. It doesn't matter if we fight or not, it's too late. She'll make my life a living hell. I can't go back. I can't just move out either. I'm in college. I can't afford a place of my own unless I drop out to work at least full time. It's all just a trap. A web that I can't ever escape."

"So you can stay here," I answer, but I can tell it isn't what she's looking to hear.

She turns to me. "I want to. I really, truly, want to. But I had to rationalize this to myself. No offense or anything, but it doesn't exactly feel like the right decision to turn your back on the only family you've ever known."

I understood, but selfishly I wished she could see things from an outside perspective. She deserved so much better than the abuse she was suffering.

"Whatever you chose to do won't be easy, but you have Amelia and Meredith and Derek to support you," Janet said.

We were told we could come back to go over her decision tomorrow and if we had decided to try and pursue permanent custody, they would connect us with some good family court lawyers. I thanked each of them and we met Meredith in the hall.

"How'd it go?" she asked me over Alexa's shoulder as she hugged her.

"Informative," Alexa commented instead. I just shrugged to Mer.

"Well what'd they say? Do they think you have a good chance of getting custody?"

"It kind of seemed like they thought it was up in the air. Not a clear cut thing. So we have a decision to make. Well. Alexa does," I explained.

We were walking towards the car but Alexa stopped dead in her tracks and turned around. Tears welled in her eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks. "Can you help me, please? I don't know what to do. I can't make the decision alone."

I swallowed hard. "You're not alone, hun. I just… I don't want to swing you either way. You know what I want to do, but I want to do what you want to do."

This only seemed to upset her more. Stupid Amelia.

"These are the types of decisions that you can get help with in therapy," Meredith quickly added. "They won't tell you what to do either, but they can help you sort out your feelings to make the decision. Amelia's right. It's probably better if you decide on your own." Alexa had an appointment with Dr. Wyatt this week at the hospital, which was unusual but Dr. Wyatt had agreed given the unusual circumstances.

Alexa nodded and we kept walking to the car. Mer had driven, but we were both due to the hospital in an hour, which meant Alexa would be spending the day at the house. She had mentioned something about inviting some friends from school over who lived nearby, but I didn't know if she was just assuring us she had plans to make us feel better or if she really was going to hangout.

When we dropped her off, she retreated into the house solemnly. "Do you think she's okay?" I asked.

"Well, no."

I sighed. "No, I don't mean okay like, I'm not okay but I will be with time and proper help. I mean, do you think she's damaged? Fucked up? One of us? As in, resorting to oxy and tequila as a coping mechanism, sleeping with an inappropriate number of men, and exhibiting other self-destructive behavior? I would really hate to see her join the club."

"She's not there yet. She's strong. I mean, we are too, but she's been strong from the get-go. And she has us. We had no one," Mer answered honestly.

We were silent for the rest of the way to the hospital except for the occasional small talk. I was a little wigged out but overall it had been an okay day so I was determined not to let the presence of the Chief of Surgery disturb me today.

 _Amelia, Two Weeks Later_

As soon as Alexa had told me she wanted to go to court, we lawyered up and got an emergency hearing. Alexa was now back at school, but we still saw each other almost every day for the legal proceedings. We were now in day two of the trial. It had been a hell of a rollercoaster so far, but it was going about as well as expected.

Oh, I forgot to mention. I was on the stand.

"Mrs. Shepherd…"

"Dr." I corrected. My lawyer subtly shook his head. Right, I was supposed to come off as happy and warm in front of the judge, not a cutthroat, cold surgeon. Correcting others was a big no-no.

"Excuse me. Dr." the opposing lawyer started. "I'll jump right into it. Can you explain to all of us here today why you suddenly want your daughter back, after all these years of not having anything to do with her?"

I let out a breath, composing my answer. "When I gave Alexa up, I was only 16. I wasn't in a place to raise a child and I truly thought that I would be giving her a better life. But now, I believe her better life is with me. Even if things with her adoptive family were not the way they were, I would want to have custody of her. Of course, I would only support her in the ways she wanted me to, but… she needs me now. And I think that's kind of apparent."

"Dr. Shepherd… you say that it's apparent that Alexa should be in your custody…"

"Yes," I said after a minute of silence.

"And you think you'd be better able to care for Alexa than her current legal guardians?"

I swallowed. "Yes."

"Now, Dr. Shepherd, correct me if I'm wrong but… haven't you been to rehab? 50 days for addiction to oxycontin? Aren't you an alcoholic as well?"

"Recovering alcoholic," I choked, trying to keep my voice level.

"You didn't answer my question."

I was silent.

"Dr. Shepherd, please answer the question," the judge said.

I sighed. "Yes. I was in rehab. But that was years ago-"

"That's all, thank you Dr. Shepherd."

"Let me explain," I pleaded. "That's not the full story."

"You've been questioned by both parties, Dr. Shepherd. You can step down now," the judge replied.

I couldn't register much else after that. Things were moving in slow motion around me as I stepped down and heading back to our side. I took my seat next to Meredith, who reached under the table to grab my hand and give it a small squeeze.

I couldn't breathe again until someone called a recess.

* * *

There is a buzzing in my ears. Or maybe a hum. It's activity. There are people around me talking. Enjoying themselves. I forget how I got here. Or where I am for a minute.

The edges of my vision are blurry until I blink a few times. My eyes start to focus, and I immediately know that I am drunk.

"Amelia," someone is shaking my arm. Figures. I should have known better than to go to Joe's and expect to be left alone.

It's not like the whole hospital didn't know I was an alcoholic already.

I turn my head slowly to face Owen. He looks like he might cry. Probably because he heard the news that I wasn't getting custody of Alexa. You know, the only thing he cares about more than being a big jackass is getting a kid in any way, shape or form he can.

"Leave me alone," I slur, but it's still comprehensible.

"Amelia, what are you doing to yourself? Let's get you home, I'm sure Meredith and Derek are worried, and Alexa…"

"Alexa is at school. It's a Tuesday. I only see her on weekends… that's all I'll ever see of her, now."

Owen shook his head. I was still spinning a little. Coming out of the trance. "Meredith said you could appeal the decision, the lawyer thinks you have a good chance with an appeal…"

I slammed my fist on the bar. "Why are you even asking Meredith about the case? Just stay out of it."

He sighed. "Let me just bring you home. Please."

I didn't say anything so he took that as a yes. Before I knew it, he was ushering me up the stairs to his truck that was parked right outside the bar. I dozed off in the passenger seat with my head against the window until he rolled to a stop in the driveway.

He looked at me like he didn't know what to say. I felt my eyelids grow heavier and heavier… I just wanted to go to bed. Opening the door seemed like an impossible task, though.

"Do you need me to walk you in?"

I was shaking my head no but I knew in my state it was no use. I didn't want to knock anything over and wake up the kids, nor did I want to explain to Meredith or Derek the events of the night. Owen was opening the door for me in a second.

Meredith was in the kitchen when we walked in. The lights were blinding me.

"Is she drunk?" she turned to Owen. "Amelia, are you drunk?"

I didn't say anything. Owen nodded his head solemnly.

"Well… well that's okay, it was just a slip, right? It was a hard day, and… and…" Mer was trying to explain it away.

"Meredith, I don't think-"

"You don't need to make excuses for me. We can just say it. I royally fucked up. _As usual!_ "

"Amelia, shh," Meredith said sternly. "Well, are you okay?"

"Do you mean, am I going to puke? No. But this probably isn't okay."

"Probably not," Mer said.

Owen cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I can, uh, help you up to your room if you'd let me. I don't want you to hurt yourself on the stairs."

"I'll be fine," I protested.

"Please do," Mer agreed at the same time.

Owen had one arm under me as we started to the bottom of the stairs.

"Amelia, just a step up, you can do it. You're almost to your bed."

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't take a step.

Mer approached us from behind. "What's wrong?"

I started to collapse into Owen, but he was easily able to hold me up. "Amelia?"

I freed myself from his grip and finally hit the floor. "I can't do it. I can't do anything. I haven't done a single thing right in all of my life…" I was crying. Hard.

I felt the emptiness in my chest like a bruise on my heart that emanated through me with every beat. Every breath hurt my lungs, every word burned my throat. I was laying on the floor but I was falling, deeper and deeper into myself with every second that passed.

"Amelia, we're going to fight this with an appeal, remember? It's not your fault…" Mer said but it seemed distant. I could tell her and Owen were trying to figure out what to do with me. I didn't care. I wouldn't have cared if they decided to carry me to the curb and leave me out next to the trash.

"Amelia," Owen pleaded. "We're just going upstairs and we'll get you into bed. Okay? Then you can sleep, I know you're tired, you're exhausted…"

I felt Owen's arms around me, searing hot and strong. He put one arm under my knees and the other under my arms. I tried to fight him but it was no use. I finally gave in and sobbed into his chest.

"I'm just going to take you upstairs, and then you can go to sleep," he repeated as he started up the steps. "Mer's going to come with us just to make sure you're okay. Alright?"

When we got to my room, Owen placed my down on the bed. Meredith stepped into the doorway. He leaned down. "I love you, Amelia. I'm so sorry." He kissed my forehead and left before I could even process what was going on.

I curled up onto my side and pulled the covers over me.

"Amelia," Meredith said. "Tell me you're okay."

"I'm drunk," I said.

"That's not what I mean. Tell me I'm not going to wake up to a goodbye note from you. Tell me that you know you're going to get through this, that it sucks right now, a lot, but you know we're going to survive and we're going to figure out a way to get custody of Alexa for you."

"Sure."

She was so quiet for a minute that I thought she left. When I turned back to the door, though, she was still standing there.

"When I said before that we were alone… well, we're not now. We've got each other. We've got other people, but we've got each other too. We're a lot more alike than we realize, I think."

"I appreciate it, Meredith, really, but I just want to be left alone."

"Okay. I'm not going to say anything to Derek when he gets back, by the way. If you were worried about that. Because you're not going to get drunk anymore, right?"

"Can we talk about this in the morning?" I begged. I would have given anything to have her flip the light off and finally close the freaking door.

Mer nodded and closed the door. Oblivion at last.

* * *

I was the first one awake by a long shot the next morning. Probably because I was dehydrated and I hadn't eaten anything substantial in a while. I started a pot of coffee after downing a bottle of water, and rummaged the fridge for something light to eat.

I nearly had a heart attack when Owen walked into the kitchen from the living room wearing last night's clothes.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I just heard someone in here…"

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

He looked guilty. "Amelia, I just couldn't leave knowing how hurt and upset you were. Meredith told me I could stay to make sure…"

"If you wanted to make sure I was okay, you could have, I don't know, not cheated on me?"

"I thought we were broken up!" Owen raised his voice. I flinched. He shook his head, as if dismissing his actions. "Amelia, I meant what I said last night. I love you. I always have."

"You haven't acted like it. Bringing _Taylor_ around the hospital, right under my nose! I deserve some respect, Owen. I don't deserve much but I deserve faithfulness."

"You deserve everything, Amelia. You deserve better than what I've been doing. I'm sorry. But you deserve so much more, too. You deserve to be happy. You deserve… you deserve custody of Alexa. Because you've been a great mother to her all along."

"Apparently, it doesn't work that way," I commented. I was being cynical. Hell, I was feeling cynical.

"You just have to fight a little more," he pushed.

I sighed and looked up at him. "And what if I don't want to fight anymore, Owen? I mean, do you even know how it feels to be put up on the stand, and have every part of your life called into question? To have the deepest, darkest parts of your past shared with whoever wanted to listen? To be told you're not a good enough mother to officially take care of the same person who grew inside of you for nine whole months, who looks like you and acts like you and loves you? And to lose to that woman, that-that-that _monster_ is just insane!" I was starting to break down again. "If Mark was here, he would have won custody. He would have said the right things and done everything right…"

"If Mark were here, he would have shown up late for court because he was too busy sleeping with the stenographer," Owen joked. I smiled, and it felt really, really good. It didn't escape my notice that he was slowly getting closer and closer to me. "Amelia," he said, with open arms. "We'll figure it out."

I took a deep breath and nodded in return, letting him hug me tightly. Maybe I didn't believe it with every fiber of my being, but it seemed like there was some hope.

"I'm sorry, too," I said. "I'm sorry I haven't been.."

"It's okay."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Hello there, sorry it's been a while but I had to finish my finals and take a break because they damn near killed me. Anyways, here you are. We are nearing the end of this story but I have vague plans for a sequel. What I mean is, I probably won't stop writing this anytime soon but the story might take on a different form.**

 **Thanks for listening and enjoy** **R &R please!**

 _Alexa_

I couldn't believe that Amelia hadn't won custody of me.

There, I said it. It felt completely wrong to be hoping that my adoptive mother wouldn't win, but I had always been feeling like this whether I knew it or not. She was just awful to me. A lot worse, as of late, but she never felt like my mother.

Amelia felt like my mother.

And this whole thing sounded like a giant soap opera. I mean, it's not like my adoptive parents were just going to randomly die in a car accident and I just so happen to have the chance to find my birth mother or anything, but the fact that I basically hated my adoptive mother and found and lover my birth mother seemed like the type of thing that only happened in cheesy writing.

It was messier than anyone liked to admit, though. I still loved my sister Kaleigh. I still loved my adoptive father… though we were distant since they cut me off. I guess those were losses I was going to have to deal with if I wanted to start a new life out here in Seattle.

I had been thinking about all of this in the shower. I mean, technically, Amelia didn't have custody of me but she might as well have. I went to Meredith's house every weekend, I never spoke to my adoptive mother or father, and I lived here in Seattle. The paper was a formality, everyone kept telling me, but I could tell it was just to make me feel better about the fact that Amelia lost. I wanted to be her daughter again.

I was walking back to my room, wrapped in a towel, shower shoes clicking against my heels. A perk of UWash was that the bathrooms were _way_ nicer than at UNH, but the people… not so much.

My roommate wasn't the same person as last semester, since I had decided so late that I wanted to stay for the spring semester. She wasn't an awful human compared to the awful people in my life, but she wasn't exactly welcoming.

"Hey," I said when I entered the room. Oh God, why was I being so weird? I just left fifteen minutes ago for the shower, and it wasn't like she was missing me.

"Hey, do you want to come to a party tonight?" Lily asked without looking up from her phone.

It was a Thursday night, and I had class the next day. I could probably skip, but I still wasn't usually a huge partygoer. "Uhh…"

My silence got Lily's undivided attention. "Oh, come on. We have 4 guys in our group, so our ratio is awful. We need more girls. And besides we can like… bond."

So that's why she was inviting me. She wanted to get into the frats without abandoning her guy friends.

"Sure," I agreed, surprising myself. Whatever. Even if she was only asking me to benefit herself, we definitely could have used some time together and a favor for her wouldn't hurt. I didn't have any homework that needed to be done for tomorrow, so a party was doable. "Where is it?"

"Lambda," she said, and then I was sorry I asked. Like that would mean anything to me. It was all Greek to me. _Ha._ "We're leaving at 10 but the guys are coming here to pregame first. If that's cool." Lily asked as if she hadn't had friends over a thousand times before without my permission.

I just nodded. "Okay, the only thing is… I don't really have that much to wear. I'm not really prepared for this kind of thing."

"Please," she rolled her eyes. "I've seen your closet. You have all the right stuff, just no idea how to put it together." She stood and started moving hangers around in my closet, looking for the perfect shirt. "So wear this…" she handed me a hanger. It was holding a thin strapped blue-green shirt that I wore to my grandmother's wake under a black cardigan. I had to admit, without the cardigan it looked nice in a different way. "And then just some black leggings. See? Not too hard."

"It's February, and you want me to wear this?" I asked incredulously. "Shouldn't I grab a sweatshirt or something?" That was my normal attire. Sweatshirts leggings or tee shirts and jeans. I knew I wasn't dressing as nice as I possibly could have but I knew I never looked bad enough to catch attention either. I was in the middle of the road.

"It's a short walk to the house and then it's going to be like a thousand degrees in there. Trust me, you'll thank me later."

"Alright, then." Who knew what I was getting myself into.

* * *

Turns out, parties were actually fun! Our whole group got into the house pretty easily but I think it's because we got there relatively early and there weren't already a lot of people there. The furniture in the living room had been rearranged so there was room to dance, but I wasn't one for that so I was hanging out with Lily and a couple of her friends by the beer pong table. We weren't playing, just sitting and watching the guys who we came with.

"I'm going to grab a beer. Do you want anything?" Lily asked me. I shook my head. She looked hurt. "Come on. One beer is _not_ going to kill you. I know we haven't exactly been warm to each other but… Let's drink to it. Ya know?"

She left before I could protest again. Whatever. One beer really wasn't going to kill me.

When Lily came back and handed me the can, I struggled to get my finger under the tab, but she was poking a hole in hers. "You're not going to shotgun it?"

"I've never even had a beer, I'm _definitely_ not going to shotgun one right now. Sorry." I finally opened the damn thing and took a sip.

"You guys, we should play that flip cup game. Not Flip Cup but the tossing one," one of Lily's friends said. As if that made _any_ sense.

But they all seemed to know what she was saying.

"Alright Alexa, you're my partner," Lily pulled my off the couch. "Okay, so when it's our turn, you take the solo cup and toss it to me. If I miss, that's a shot. Then you toss the ball to me and I try to catch it with the cup. I can't use my other hand to help it in. If I miss then that's another shot. Then we switch. So four shots total if we miss everything, okay?"

"Uh, yeah alright," I reluctantly agreed. I had played softball, I wasn't planning on missing that many anyway. "Shots of what?"

Lily grinned as someone pulled a handle of Southern Comfort Whiskey out from the cabinet in the kitchen. _Jesus_.

"We're going first," the one named Jenna said. Her and her partner lined up a few feet away and Jenna tossed the cup. "Oops, totally my fault!" she said all sarcastic as she cast the cup in the complete wrong direction. "I guess that's a shot for us!"

Lily nudged me " _Don't_ miss on purpose. We don't want to get sloppy like those two already do."

I nodded in agreement as everyone took their turns. Finally, Lily and I got to go.

We both missed the ping pong ball, so that was two shots each.

I was started to feel a buzz after our turn ended, so the next time I _did_ miss on purpose. Another shot each.

By the time I was five shots in, I elected to sit down. I could tell I was starting to get drunk even though I hadn't ever been before.

"What's your tolerance, like 0?" Lily joked.

"Tell me, Lily, what's the exact scale on tolerance again?" I snipped. She seemed impressed and sat down next to me. "I am having fun, though. Thanks again for inviting me."

"Yeah, sure, you did us a favor. Lambda is usually the worst to get into if we have that many guys."

"That was a fun game," I commented.

She laughed. "Don't be a fool. Drinking games aren't meant to be fun, they're just meant to get you drunk."

 _Amelia_

Thursday night, I was sitting in Owen's bed while he was in the shower. I noticed the time, 11:34 pm. I hadn't talked to Alexa much since the trial and I knew she wasn't asleep yet so I decided to call her and just quickly say goodnight.

"Heeeeeeeeey," her voice rang through the receiver. "It's me. Alexa."

"Uh, yeah, I know… Wait, what are you doing?"

"Just chillin'. You know. At Lambda."

I paused. "You're drunk?"

"Hahahaaaa, you know it. You know me so well. What's up with you?"

"Nothing," Now I wanted to hang up as soon as possible. "I just wanted to see how you were feeling and say goodnight. Oh, and ask you what time you wanted to be picked up tomorrow. Just text me in the morning then."

"Actuallllllly, Lily asked me if I wanted to go out again with her this weekend, so I was going to stay here. If that's cool."

I wanted to ask her to come anyway, but I stopped myself. Who was I to stop her from having fun? She hadn't stayed at school a single weekend since the start of this semester, and I was glad she was hanging out with friends. Still, I wanted to talk to her about the trial and it kind of hurt that she would rather be there than with me. "Yeah, absolutely. Hope you're having fun. Be safe. Don't party too hard. And call if you need anything… or if you change your mind."

"Yup, I will, bye!" she hung up without another word.

I guess I probably looked a little defeated when Owen got out of the shower. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. "Yeah, I just called Alexa and she was drunk is all. And she asked me if it was okay that she stay at school this weekend."

Owen sat down next to me on the bed even though he was still in his towel. He just smiled at me with the sad, pity eyes that I usually hated. Tonight they were comforting.

I put my head on his shoulder. "Am I really jealous of a 20 year old right now?"

He laughed a little. "It makes sense. She gets to party and let loose to forget about the trial. You don't. But, you have an entire night with your amazing boyfriend so it's not _all_ bad."

I rolled my eyes. "Are we okay?"

"Of course we are. I told you we would be." He stood and smiled. "Now, what do you say we get our own party started?" He grabbed a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long sleeved black tee shirt from his drawer and got dressed, flopping into bed with me. "I'll bet that stupid show you like is on."

I chuckled. "There's nothing I'd rather be doing."

I was happy, laying in Owen's bed, basically using his bicep as a pillow and huddling together against the cold February skies under his fluffy comforter. The trial seemed like a thousand years ago.

* * *

I forgot where I was for a minute when I woke up. I hadn't slept in the trailer in a really, really long time. I longed for the heat of my room at the house. Above me in the sun roof I could see the rain turning into snow as I nuzzled closer to Owen.

He stirred. "You hogging all the covers is a feeling I haven't missed," he joked.

"I'm cold," I complained. "Maybe you shouldn't have a full-sized comforter on a queen-sized bed."

"It was what I had. What, was I just going to ask Shep to replace the bed for me? 'Hey yeah, Derek, I need you to downsize the bed for me. It's just too lavish for my needs.'"

I rolled my eyes. "Don't be dramatic. We'll go buy a new one later."

"Or, we could just get a house."

I was stunned. "What?"

"A house. You and me. With a room for Alexa. And a guest room. Or two guest rooms, maybe. And we can get all new furniture and bedding. Whatever kind you want."

"Owen…"

"What? We were engaged before. It's not like we hardly know each other."

"I know… but it's not like we can just pick up where we left off and forget about everything that happened in between," I sighed.

"That's not what I'm saying, Amelia. Why do you always have to go on accuse mode?" Owen said defensively.

"I'm not, I just…"

"Give me one good, solid reason why we shouldn't start looking for a house together. And you can't just say 'this isn't the right time'. Give me one good reason."

I couldn't. I really couldn't think of a single reason why we shouldn't be taking this step in our relationship. Yeah, maybe we were moving a little quickly after breaking things off, but life is way too short. Alexa's dead father (and my own) were a testament to that. I shrugged. "I guess we're officially looking for a house?"

Owen smiled and kissed me, and broke the kiss by smiling again. "We're getting a house together."

"Wait," I said.

"I know what you're going to say, but I already beat you too it." Before I knew what was happening, Owen was opening the tiny velvet box with the ring inside. My ring. "I asked Derek to find it for me. So Amelia… let's get married."

He slipped the ring over my ring finger and it felt like it belonged. Maybe it was because I had already worn the ring before but I figured it was more than that.

"Can we get a reclining couch at least?" I asked.

Owen laughed. "That's all you have to say?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

* * *

It didn't escape anyone's notice that the ring was back on my finger that day at work. I think April and Arizona were the most excited out of anyone.

"Can we help plan the wedding? Oh, Sofia and Alexa can be flower girls! Who are your bride's maids going to be?" April gushed.

"I don't think Alexa is going to want to be a flower girl. She's twenty, April," Arizona commented.

We were all sitting in the attendings lounge eating a quick lunch. "Actually, we're getting married soon. Like really soon. We both just figured… why wait? And he's right, we were engaged before this. So there's no time like the present."

"Like, how soon? I have time to start a wedding binder right? You need a wedding binder for sure," April interjected.

Just then Mer walked in. "Wedding binder?"

I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers. "Will you be my maid of honor, Meredith?"

"No fair!" Arizona playfully hit my arm.

"Well sure, just as long as I'm not looking for a runaway bride three minutes before the wedding," Mer said as she sat down.

I rolled my eyes. "I already did the whole running-away-from-my-problems-shebang. There's going to be a wedding, promise."

Mer poked her salad with her fork. "Did you tell Alexa yet?"

"I haven't talked to her. She's having fun this weekend, I didn't want to bother her."

"When are you planning to have this wedding? Derek said Hunt said sometime soon…"

"Two weeks. Wait, you guys knew?"

"Oh, yeah, Derek had me scouring the entire house for that ring," Mer laughed.

"Okay so _Zola_ and Sofia can be the flower girls, and Alexa can be a bride's maid then? And Bailey can be the ring bearer," April was still going on. "You never answered the question. Who are all your bride's maids? And where are you getting married?"

"You two, Alexa, Callie if she wants…"

"Oh, she wants," Arizona cut in.

"… and then Meredith as the maid of honor. I think we want to have it in a church but we'll see what we can get on such short notice, you know?"

April was staring at me like I had three heads. "You don't want any of your sisters to be your bride's maids?"

"You guys are my sisters. They probably won't even come," I said. And while I believed it with every fiber of my being, I still didn't want it to be true.

* * *

Owen and I left work together that night, holding hands and talking about how we wanted to furnish our new house. "I'm just saying, leather couches are amazingly comfortable."

"They don't last as long," Owen protested. "Besides, if we get a leather couch everyone's going to make our house the get together house and I don't know if you can handle that kind of responsibility," he teased.

"Oh, fine. But we're not getting a futon either."

"What? A futon is so practical, though!"

"We're not twelve, Owen, we don't need to have extra space for sleepovers. We're going to try for a guest room anyways, right? So it's fine."

"Fine," he grumbled. I couldn't help but laugh. For the first time in a while everything, _everything_ felt right.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Hello all! Sorry this chapter is so late, but I wanted to do right by the story.**

 **This is going to be the last chapter. However, I have plans for a sequel and I'm going to post the first chapter at the same time as this chapter. It's called "So We Thought".**

 **And lastly, thank you so much for sticking with me through this story! It has been fun to write and I appreciate every favorite, follow, and review. It is my first fic so your endless support has been everything.**

 _Alexa_

Kaleigh was calling me nonstop on Sunday, but I was hungover. That felt weird to say. _Hungover_. Like I was some kind of college party goer. The truth was, I went out again with Lily last night, but Friday night I was alone in my room wishing I had gone to stay at Meredith's. I thought about calling Amelia lots of times, but I figured she might have been working, and it wouldn't really be fair to have her come pick me up after I had already said no, and then drive me back for Saturday night just so I could go out again.

So I stayed in my room and caught up on my TV shows until I fell asleep. Saturday I did all my homework, knowing damn well I wasn't trying to be in any state to do it Sunday afternoon and night. And I wasn't. It was weirdly satisfying to be experiencing something so normal for many other people. People who weren't me.

"Kaleigh…" I groaned. "We're both going to get into some deep shit if you don't stop calling me."

"No, that's why I'm calling. I need out. Now. Lex, she's _psycho!_ " Kaleigh yelled. She was the only one who ever called me Lex. Nobody here did, and I thought it would be weird anyway since Meredith's sister used to go by Lexie.

"Yeah, I know."

"You're not listening to me! She has gone OFF THE DEEP END. I need you," she started sobbing. "Can I please come stay with you? Like in your dorm or whatever? I'm afraid…"

"You're afraid of what, Kaleigh?" By now I was wide awake, adrenaline rushing through me. I could almost understand why my mother was the way she was to me. But Kaleigh had done nothing wrong. "She hasn't hurt you too, has she?"

The silence was the only confirmation I needed. She took a deep breath but couldn't pull it together.

"Can you afford a flight out to Seattle? I can figure something out while you're in the air… don't worry, Kaleigh. I won't let you suffer anymore." I knew they were empty promises, and she probably did too, but it didn't matter. She would be 18 this week and she _needed_ to get out of there before my mother killed her.

"I don't have any money… she drained my account when we started fighting. I don't know what to do, Lex!"

"I'll call you back later today, I promise. Just get yourself somewhere safe, like a friend's house or something. I'm gonna figure something out for you."

"Wait, Lex, don't hang up!"

Too late. I hit the first speed dial in my phone, though I never imagined myself actually using it when I programmed it. Amelia picked up on the first ring. "Hey, how was your weekend? I hope you didn't have too much to drink…" she sounded happy, way more bubby than she did when I talked to her on Thursday.

"I need you to come get me as soon as possible. Or Meredith or Derek. Or Arizona or Callie. Someone. I need to talk to you as soon as humanly possible." I was ripping on a tee shirt and a pair of jeans out of the hamper. "I'll take a cab if I have to, I just need-"

"Yeah, of course. I'm off today, luckily, so I'll come right now. Is everything alright?"

"Wish I could say it was."

 _Amelia_

The entire way to UWash, it was hard not to think about how everything had changed. I mean, this summer I was barely in a relationship with Owen, and now we were engaged for the second time. I've met and come to love the daughter of myself and Mark. I am looking for a house with Owen. My relationship with Derek is about as good as it gets, and Meredith has come to be my best friend.

Certainly says something for hope, doesn't it?

My lawyer says the appeal is in the works and in the meantime we should document everything that happens with Alexa's adoptive mother. I hope I get custody of her, but the truth is, it matters a lot less than I thought. It would represent a lot, and would make everything a lot easier, that's for sure. But what matters more is that Alexa and I love each other and have a chance now to be in each other's lives for real. Custody or not, she is my daughter and I am her mother.

I couldn't wait to tell her about the wedding but I could tell something was seriously wrong on the phone. I hoped her mother hadn't contacted her with her awful and spiteful words again, but some part of me deep down kind of hoped that she did so that we could win the appeal against her. It was a double edged sword, I supposed.

I texted Alexa that I was outside but she was in the passenger seat faster than I could hit send. She must have been waiting.

"What's wrong?"

She sighed. "I need you to be sitting, not driving, for me to get into it."

"You're worrying me."

"I just… I can't say right now, okay?"

"Okay."

We drove in silence for the entire ride home, the only thing breaking it up being me calling Meredith to let her know that Alexa and I were coming back to the house, and texting Owen (at a stoplight!) that I would be at Mer's.

Derek and the kids were home when we got there. I could tell Alexa was at least somewhat happier when she hugged Zola.

Alexa looked like she could cry as she sat me down in the living room. Derek thankfully got the hint and him and the kids got lost.

"I need… Something's happened."

"Is it about your mother?" I asked.

She nodded. "It's worse than I could have imagined."

My heart ached for her. "The lawyer said that for the appeal it would be good to bring new evidence to light and that we should keep track of all of your interactions with her from here on out…"'

She just nodded again. "How about a witness?"

"What?" I asked. "I thought you said you were the only ones home when-"

"There was another incident. Only this time it wasn't me. It was Kaleigh. She's been hurting Kaleigh, Amelia. And I need to help her, but… I'm in no position to ask you this, but I'm going to anyway. Please don't hold it against me."

"Anything," I breathed.

"She's trapped there. She asked if she could stay out here, with us. Well, she wanted to stay in my dorm but that's not practical-"

With impeccable timing, Owen decided right then was the perfect time to barge through the front door. "Did you tell her?" he asked with a big, goofy grin.

 _Men._

"No, I-"

"Tell me what?" Alexa asked, concerned. "Oh my God, I'm totally going to ruin your life. Forget I even said anything."

"Alexa? What are you talking about?" came Owen's voice, soft and calm as he sat next to me on the couch.

She sighed again, and a few tears sprung. "I wanted to ask for Kaleigh to move here with me. I know it's not fair, and you have no obligation to her – hell, you don't even have an obligation to me, but I've run out of options. There's nothing else I can do to protect her except to ask you to take her in too. I'm so sorry."

Owen and I shared a look. I knew without asking what he would say.

"Alexa," he started. "Amelia and I are engaged again. We're going to be married. And because of that we've started looking for a house… one with a bedroom for you, and a guest room was in the works but that could easily become a room Kaleigh."

I started to well up as I watched the man I love give such great news to my daughter. "We'd be happy to have Kaleigh. If she's anything like you, she's amazing, too. And I'm glad you would be able to live with your sister again."

Alexa looked like the weight of the world fell off her shoulders. She sprang off the couch and hugged us both, repeating "Thank you, thank you, thank you," endless times. "And congratulations," she added after a minute.

"Thanks," I smiled. "Would you want to be a bridesmaid? We're planning it for two weeks from now…"

"Of course I want to!"

"Well good, because April will probably have you scheduled for a fitting by tomorrow. She has a serious organization mania."

 _Alexa_

The three of us, that is, Amelia, Owen and I, met Kaleigh at the airport that night as she landed. When I saw her, I hugged her tight for so long that people started to stare. We were both crying and I was just so glad to have my little sister there with me in my arms.

Ever since she moved into Meredith's she has been a little down, but I've been staying there with her and commuting to school so she wouldn't feel like a loner.

The lawyer says Amelia has a good chance of winning custody of us both with Kaleigh's testimony and I couldn't have been happier.

Then of course, the wedding happened and that made me the happiest of all.

Amelia's dress was absolutely stunning. It was strapless with a crossed corset-like design in the back and fitted down to the waist before the skirt fell elegantly around her. April did her hair by doing a right Dutch bang braid in the front and curling the rest in small ringlets that framed her face perfectly. Our bridesmaid's dresses were pale blue, which Callie hated just a little bit, but it was my favorite color.

Kaleigh sat in the front row with Derek and the kids, and I could tell she was feeling a lot better now, too. She had always loved this kind of thing.

As for the rest, well, that was history. It was just me and my family now. Owen was the best soon-to-be stepdad in the world and having my sister right by my side was the last thing I needed to complete the puzzle of my life.


End file.
